More proof you brick-n-mortar store owners can’t directly blame the internet/high-tech competition for your demise. Incomplete list of U.S. internet/high-tech/communications job destruction announcements in March 2016:
According to S&P Global Market Intelligence Apple, Verizon Communications, Alphabet-Google, AT&T, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Oracle and Comcast avoided paying U.S. corporate taxes despite making at least 50% in profits in 2015!
Japan based electronics maker Toshiba, who was caught out last year cooking its own accounting books revealing that it was actually losing money (over the past seven years), is now under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The U.S. investigation is about Toshiba’s U.S. subsidiaries lying about their revenues to avoid paying U.S. taxes, and includes the U.S. nuclear power plant maker/operator Westinghouse (which is now owned by Toshiba). Toshiba has recently been fined a record $66-million USD by Japan’s Financial Services Agency for lying about their revenues.
Alabama: In Huntsville, the now shuttered non-profit Sci-Quest museum is officially chapter 7 bankrupt busted.
Arizona: In Phoenix, internet medical check-up scheduling service Zocdoc laid off 33 people and is consolidating its sales team to its NYC HQ. Local news reports say its part of a larger plan by the high-tech industry to drastically cut back because they expect the economy to get much worse! Washington DC based e-commerce Living Social shutting down their Tucson call center, 160 jobs lost by the end Spring! Administrators claim the bad economy is forcing them to restructure, and they warned the call center shutdown was just “the initial phase” (even though they’ve eliminated 6-hundred jobs since 2014!).
California: British empire United Kingdom based software solutions company (according to Bloomberg) nobody heard of, Mycom North America, revealed it suddenly shutdown their Santa Fe Springs office, 138 jobs lost no explanation! Mycom North America, is apparently dead in the water as it suddenly issued shutdown WARNs for all its offices around the United States! A lawsuit was filed by a U.S. contractor accusing Mycom of failing to pay them for work rendered, and last year Mycom was sued by a U.S. property management company for failing to pay rent on property in West Virginia! In San Jose, TiVo laid off 52 people. In Sunnyvale, Imagine Communications issued a shutdown WARN, 50 jobs lost by April. Investors Business Daily issued multiple layoff WARNs, at least 49 jobs lost in several cities by the end of April. In Bakersfield, Xerox eliminating 15 jobs by the end of April. In Tustin, Pacific Bell Telephone eliminating 121 jobs by May! In Sunnyvale, internet/tech company NetApp eliminating 376 jobs by the end of April! In Aliso Viejo, video game maker Carbine Studios laid of 70 people and another 18 people will become unemployed in May. The launch of their game, WildStar, has been canceled for China and administrators say they are re-focusing efforts on the U.S. and European markets. And video game maker NC Interactive (NCsoft) already laid off 11 people. Redwood based smartwatch maker Pebble already in trouble, eliminating 40 jobs due to lack of “support” from those idiots who throw their money at tech startups. Administrators blame it on increasing competition from other tech companies for that “support”. In other words; tech companies don’t make money off actually selling something, it comes from geeks who “support” those companies (hey, why doesn’t anybody want to support Blind Bat News? hit the donate button). Santa Barbara based wireless company Sonos announced it will eliminate jobs (but refuses to say how many) as they shift focus from WiFi to Streaming. And in Los Angeles, Fox Sports-digital suddenly eliminated more than 20 internet writer jobs through a loophole in their contracts. Basically Fox Sports blaming low ratings of their internet ‘team news-letters’ on the writers. Sebastopol based Safari Books Online has laid off an undisclosed number of employees, including the CEO! The layoffs were revealed by the former CEO. The company, which does business on the internet, is consolidating operations. Japan based video game maker SEGA (SEGA was created in the U.S. territory of Hawaii in 1940, where it made slot machines) revealed they eliminated an undisclosed number of jobs from their San Francisco SEGA Networks ops. In San Francisco, internet/tech company YourPeople-Zenefits officially revealed how many jobs they eliminated last month, 83. And San Francisco based software maker Optimizely laid off about 40 employees blaming the devaluation of the tech industry: “This being the right decision shifted on February 5. The impact of that day on public SaaS [Software as a Service] companies, in some cases cutting their value in half, was a wake up call for me personally to realize that ultimately if we want to build a business that can endure and be impactful, we need to make ourselves resilient…”-Dan Siroker, ceo during interview with Forbes
Palo Alto based credit card validating e-reader Jumio now chapter 11 bankrupt busted and for sale. Administrators blame lack of ‘crowd funding’ (guess those low-tech girls in low-cut t-shirts didn’t work). This is more proof that most tech companies are never successful, having to rely on crowd funding support for their real money. Palo Alto based ‘cloud’ computing company SurveyMonkey eliminating 1-hundred jobs, saying “The products and solutions in place were not going to generate long-term value for SurveyMonkey.”
Connecticut: Hartford based healthcare provider Aetna eliminated 26 jobs with its iTriage App in Colorado. Aetna then announced plans to merge iTriage App with WellMatch App, no word on how many more InfoTech jobs will be lost to the merger.
Delaware: Software company SevOne revealed that it eliminated about 50 jobs in February.
Florida: Mycom North America suddenly shutdown their Orlando office. Interestingly the WARN lists the company as “construction”, but Bloomberg’s Company Overview calls it a U.K. based privately held software-engineering company. Global electronic payment company First Data finally notified state employment administrators that it shutdown its Maitland office and laid off at least 129 people, last year!
Idaho: In Garden City, after 40 years The Gem State’s largest horse racing op Les Bois Park suddenly shutdown. It’s the latest victim of a recent decision by A-hole ‘christian’ regulators declaring instant horse racing machines to be “unconstitutional”! Boise State University conducted an economic study which concluded that Les Bois Park alone generated $50-million USD for Ada County, and provided 536 jobs, all lost now! The Idaho Horse Council says there will be a domino effect across Idaho’s equine economy: “It’s the feed, the hotels, the traveling, eating… it’s just a trickledown effect. Horses are going to be shipped out of state and that’s income Idaho doesn’t get. That’s devastating for our horse economy.”-Myron Amsden
Illinois: Chicago based internet coupon service Groupon conducting more job culling, this time 25 Breadcrumb employees were let go. Back in August 20 Breadcrumb employees lost their jobs. News reports say Groupon has now cut in half the number of Breadcrumb employees it once had. Inside sources say eventually Groupon will shutdown Breadcrumb altogether, despite adamant denials by Groupon administrators. Computer Systems Institute shutting down campuses across the state, eliminating 172 jobs by September! In Chicago, Computershare issued a layoff WARN, 56 jobs lost by the end of April. Troubled drugs maker Abbott Laboratories about to fire U.S. InfoTech workers and replace them with migrants from India: “-You have given 180 U.S. employees 60-days notice, and their last day of employment at Abbott Labs will be April 22, 2016.
-To add insult to injury, the Abbott Labs IT staff who will be laid off will first be forced to train their replacements.
–You have awarded Wipro Ltd, a large Indian outsourcing firm, with a contract to take over the jobs of these American workers.
-You are offering the U.S. workers severance of a week’s pay for each year they spent at the company, but in order to receive this severance you are requiring these employees to sign away their right to sue or disparage the company. The severance packet you gave your workers contains a full-page ad listing jobs at Wipro.
-The people you are laying off have stellar experience, credentials, and performance reviews, and some have been with your company for 15-20 years.”-Dick Durbin, U.S. Senator
Kentucky: Printer maker Lexmark issued a WARN, 143 Fayette County jobs lost by the end of May! Company administrators did not give a reason. E-commerce and logistics company Innotrac shutting down their Hebron operation, 338 jobs lost by July! There was no official reason given, but local news sources suspect it’s connected to a deal with Amazon. Call center operator Convergys eliminating up to 1-hundred jobs in Erlanger, due to the loss of a client.
Louisiana: In Baton Rouge, Xerox State & Local Solutions issued a layoff WARN, 84 jobs lost by May due to “a change in business condition”.
Maryland: Bethesda based tax-sucker Lockheed Martin is pushing 1-thousand employees to suffer “voluntary layoffs”! Most layoffs will take place in Texas and Georgia. Administrators say it’s their only way of “staying competitive”, never mind that fact they’ve raped taxpayers for decades over their never ending ‘development’ of the grossly failed F-35 project! The at least 16 years old F-35 project has cost taxpayers $400-billion USD so far!
If the Department of Defense finally decides to buy the plane it’ll cost and additional $85-million per plane, and the special helmet for the pilot will cost $400-thousand each! The F-35 has continually failed to live up to it’s original billing, yet your ‘elected’ government continues to throw your money at it! It should also be pointed out that Russia boasts that its current fighter aircraft can easily take out the F-35.
Massachusetts: Aspect Software now chapter 11 bankrupt busted, admitting it’s a “pre-arranged restructuring” to reduce its massive debt by 40%. Avid Technology eliminating $68-million USD in jobs and services, blaming bad management decisions such as failing to keep up with new technological developments! Without warning audio equipment maker Bose began layoffs at their Framingham call center. Local news reports say Bose administrators claim it’s because more customers are using the internet to complain rather than the phone, but employees revealed that at least 2-hundred call center jobs are actually being offshored: “They have the Philippines up and running now. They will be letting more of the call center go in waves after May 6, as they bring more people online in the Philippines. They are sending our own people to train them, three months at a time.”-unnamed Bose employee
New Jersey: Mercer County Community College eliminating IT jobs as it will now use a cheap contractor. Some in-house Information Tech employees will be laid off while others will be shifted to other departments.
New York: Investor’s Business Daily eliminating a handful of jobs at their NYC publishing ops, by the end of April. NYC based ‘digital news media’ International Business Times laid off at least 15 people in New York and California, without warning. Employees had 10 minutes to vacate the premises! Unnamed sources say more layoffs could be on the way. Global electronic payment company First Data shutting down their Melville data processing center, 641 jobs lost between now and December 2017! Manifest Digital shutting down its Saratoga Springs office, as a result of its merger with McMurry/TMG. Japanese company Canon Solutions lost their contract with New York Life, 38 jobs lost by the end of May. Reports that Armonk based IBM began eliminating more jobs, just a month after reducing their six month severance plan down to just one month.
North Carolina: Mycom North America suddenly shutdown their Bessemer office.
Ohio: In Hebron, Lakewood Digital Academy shutting down in June due to cancelation of taxpayer funding. The local school district must also payback $150-thousand USD to the state Department of Education. It’s blamed on changes in laws affecting charter schools.
Oklahoma: Switzerland based oil industry automation tech supplier ABB Totalflow laid off 13 people in Bartlesville.
Oregon: Mycom North America suddenly shutdown their Portland office.
Pennsylvania: Radio Shack-Sprint shutdown their Schuylkill Mall store due to lack of “performance”. Pittsburgh-Post Gazette warned unionized employees of mass layoffs, apparently due to efforts to bribe (voluntary buyouts) more than a hundred people to quit have failed.
Texas: British empire United Kingdom based software solutions company Mycom North America suddenly shutdown their Dallas office, at least 22 jobs lost, no explanation. In Dallas, electronic “out of state title” processor Dealertrack Tech issued a WARN, 56 jobs gone by mid-May. In Coppell, Japan based Panasonic Avionics issued a WARN, 51 jobs gone by the end of June. In Alvin, Dish Network eliminating 550 call center jobs! Administrators said the lease was up and it wasn’t worth it to renew. In Austin after moving into new HQ, 10 years old internet based wholesaler network Bazaarvoice eliminated 50 jobs in order to remain successful “…in the coming year and for many years to come.” Investor’s Business Dailey issued a WARN saying at least 14 people in Plano will become jobless by the end of April.
Washington: Mycom North America suddenly shutdown their Redmond office. Bellevue based video game maker 5th Cell forced to layoff 45 people under orders from publisher Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment. A week after Seattle based retailer Nordstrom eliminated ten IT jobs, they laid off an additional 1-hundred InfoTech employees! Redmond based Microsoft announced it will shutdown two game development studios, one in United Kingdom the other in Denmark.
February 2016: “WE’RE TRULY SORRY TO EVERYONE AFFECTED.”
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification
Former employees who receive severance are not counted as unemployed