Guest post by 2009 certainly isn’t the year for economical prowess even in the thriving world of technology. Even the untouchable Google is apparently taking a hit now that it is cutting the jobs of 100 recruiters as well as closing several satellite engineering offices. Seagate seems to be taking a somewhat heftier blow but grinning and bearing it as they cut 2,950 (6%) jobs worldwide as well as reducing executive pay up to 25%. Microsoft hasn’t announced any doom just yet and hopes to avoid layoffs, but if it means staying afloat, the company could announce another chunk of the world unemployed by next Thursday.
If more companies followed Seagate’s example I bet we would see a faster recovery. It seems crazy to me that went a company starts to lose sales (whether it was from internal or external causes) that the people who main job is to avoid such problems as best they can get paid the same regardless how badly they do their job.
I really hope this work out for Seagate.
25% is a pretty large chunk. I honestly don’t know the command structure of Seagate, but it might be better to freeze raises for management and also cut management positions and organize teams with “team leaders”, peers who have some ability to lead sub-groups of employees under the managers…