TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
1–10 of 269 posts
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#2Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people).
That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone.
It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#3> Regrettably, this will have an intended impact on approximately 500 employees in our Maps unit, equivalent to around 10% of our total global headcount.
At least they are honest about it.
I am currently reading the first chapter of 21 lessons for the 21st century and it fills me up with a bit of dread. People having been losing jobs for a long time, but in the future it will get harder to get new ones due to the amount of specialization you need to acquire.
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#4Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.
It's also an indicator that quality of maps isn't necessarily viewed as a differentiator by the TomTom organization. If I suddenly had a sufficiently-good automated product and hundreds of domain experts, I'd work to have the domain experts refine the automated product, hopefully turning my (just pulling numbers out of thin air) 97% quality automated solution to a 99% quality solution. Those incremental gains on the tail are often tremendously valuable for customers.
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#5Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.
Most company's right now want to automate all skilled labor away as quickly as possible. CEOs don't want innovation, they want a saleable product with the highest profit margin and the least risk. Removing people was always the goal.
I've worked at two jobs were in the first week I was told my goal was to automate myself so I could progress my career... Yup okay then...
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#6TomTom is such an interesting story in technology and finance. Went from zero to $ 10B+ between '05 - '07 [1]. Everyone you knew had one, used one, loved one. Then the sudden boom in mobile phones and mobile internet and the financial crisis. Total crash of the stock. Pretty much subsistence without any proper profits since '09-'10. Not enough IP to get bought, a few licensing deals here and there. Always falling revenue. No profits. Pretty much a zombie corporation employing 4500 people.
Perhaps I'm harsh. Reading the annual report [2]. It's a great company! High management board remuneration. Great place to work. A minister on the supervisory board. Measures CO2 and environmental impact and water usage. And still... what does it say when 4400 people generate about 2 years of salary in total market cap? And where the only positive value is free cash flow (non-GAAP).
[1] https://companiesmarketcap.com/tomtom/earnings/
[2] https://corporate.tomtom.com/static-files/8fd1d5d2-0ecb-47b6...
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#7Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.
yup. This is why I never tell anyone that I use Copilot.
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#8Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.
Most company's right now want to automate all skilled labor away as quickly as possible. CEOs don't want innovation, they want a saleable product with the highest profit margin and the least risk. Removing people was always the goal. I've worked at two jobs were in the first week I was told my goal was to automate myself so I could progress my career... Yup okay then...
I remember hearing much the same words (cf. “My job is to make myself redundant”) in 2004.
I’m fairly sure this was the goal at least as far back as when ship builders switched from high-skilled artisans to carve each pulley for the sails individually and by hand, to using jigs so that low-skilled carpenters could make a lot that were almost as good for a fraction of the price.
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#9Damn. And instead of reinvesting and furthering R&D, product lines, and more - they're just chopping 10% (or 450 people). That's a hell of a lot of institutional knowledge just gone. It also goes to show that when I automate, I should keep it hidden. That's because I do not receive the gains of automation. Instead, I receive more work or get laid off.
This sounds like they’re firing people who manually edit and fix maps.
While it’s job that requires quite a bit of skill (my family member used to do that for other companies), those aren’t people you can redirect to R&D, at least not without heavy retraining.
Real reason behind it, is IMO, preparing for recession and finding nice sounding reason for layoffs.
Re: TomTom to cut 10% of jobs due to improved automation
#10Are announcements like this always done in this strange mixed-voice style? The first para reads like it's a third party that's reporting on the event, then in the third para they use the word "our", and it's on their website of course.