BA to cut 1,400 managers to save £170m

British Airways is offering voluntary redundancy to 1,400 managers, the airline confirmed today, in a bid to cut its wages bill by £170 million.

The move is being targeted at senior and middle managers, including some of the airline's technical management staff.

Staff have been given the option of applying for voluntary redundancy but unions fear that compulsory redundancies will follow if not enough people take up the offer.

The airline, which last month announced plans to combine routes, pricing, sales and marketing with American Airlines to create a powerful new transatlantic carrier, wants to wipe up to £170 million off its wage bill by getting rid of swathes of senior staff - amounting to about 3 per cent of the total 42,000 strong workforce.

Letters offering severance deals to managers on salaries from £40,000 to £250,000 will be sent out on September 25, with managers expected to leave by New Year's Eve.

Willie Walsh, chief executive of BA, gathered 150 of his most senior managers yesterday to give them the bad news and blamed the high price of oil and the economy.

In a statement, the airline said: "We are in the worst trading environment the industry has ever faced and we must take action to offset the combined effects of the continuing global economic downturn, weakened consumer confidence and high fuel prices."

A spokesman added that employee costs were now second only to fuel costs, which are expected to rise by £1 billion this year to more than £2 billion.

Although the price of oil has been falling from a peak in mid-July, any benefit to BA has been wiped out by the sharp drop in the value of sterling, particularly against the dollar.

BA is also battling a general weakening in demand, with August traffic figures released by the airline showing a 2.7 per cent fall in its load factor - a measure of how full its planes are - compared to 12 months earlier.

BA also gave warning that the outlook for premium travel remained “uncertain” until after the summer break. The total number of passengers carried by the airline fell 3.2 per cent to 2,988,000 compared to August last year.

"We are determined to maintain a competitive cost base and we will continue to review all areas of the business," the spokesman said.

Separately, Sir Richard Branson who runs BA's rival Virgin Atlantic, has accused British Airways of manipulating the statistics it has given to competition regulators who will have to decide whether or not to allow the alliance between BA and AA to proceed.

Mr Walsh responded, in a live radio spat between the two airline chiefs, by saying that Sir Richard Branson was trying to recreate the feud that existed between the airlines during the 1990s, when British Airways was accused by Virgin Atlantic of using "dirty tricks" to stymie Virgin's business.

Mr Walsh and Sir Richard were discussing the proposed alliance of BA and AA, to which Virgin objects fiercely. From today the slogan ’No Way BA/AA’ will be painted on the side of his company’s planes.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Sir Richard said he expected regulators to reject the merger. “The competition authorities listened to us twice before and rejected the idea of BA and AA working effectively as one airline because they believed it to be anti-competitive,” Sir Richard said.

“We believe nothing has changed, and we are going to wage a major battle to try to stop the two biggest carriers in the world from effectively working as one carrier, being able to sit down behind closed doors and fix prices and, we believe, damage the smaller competitors on the routes.”

He added: “The market competitor, massively, is BA. If you then put American Airlines on top you are talking about 65 per cent of the market. And the danger is that BA and American together will be able to go into travel agents and say, ’Look, we have 65 per cent of the market, and 65 per cent of your business is coming our way. Next year we want you to make it 68 per cent, the year after that we want you to make it 71 per cent.”

But Mr Walsh said the new deal, which also involves Spanish carrier Iberia, would be good for passengers and good for the aviation industry.

He told the programme that the background had changed completely since Virgin's feud with BA in the 1990s. He said the industry had moved on since the introduction of the ’open skies’ agreement, freeing up transatlantic routes.

Mr Walsh said: “These arguments are old, they are out of date, it’s time to move on. We have got a new operating regulatory environment, a new competitive environment - move with the times.”

He added: “This is an issue that will be assessed by the competition regulators, the experts in this field. And it’s only if they believe that this is more convenient for the consumer, that this is pro-consumer will it be approved.”

Similar proposals between BA and AA were rejected in 1997 and 2001.

The enmity between BA and Virgin Atlantic resumed again two years ago, when Virgin Atlantic blew the whistle on a price-fixing conspiracy between the two airlines.

It has emerged that Virgin has made a £32.5 million provision in its latest accounts to cover costs arising from its role in the criminal conspiracy with BA to fix the fuel surcharges levied on fares for long-haul flights to and from the UK.

The airline escaped prosecution by the US and UK competition authorities for blowing the whistle but it has been unable to escape a civil action brought in the US, which is forcing the two airlines to reimburse passengers who paid the illegally fixed surcharges.

Under the settlement, which was provisionally agreed in February, a total of $59 million (£33.3 million) can be repaid to US ticket purchasers and up to £73.5 million to UK purchasers.

Courtesy: Times Online

Vauxhall in secret cash plea to save 5,000 jobs

Vauxhall has held secret talks with Downing Street to seek financial guarantees that could save thousands of jobs in Britain as the carmaker’s American parent teeters on the brink of collapse.

The Times has learnt that the vehicle manufacturer, which employs around 5,000 workers at plants in Merseyside and Luton, approached Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, last week along with other carmakers, to urge the Government to give guarantees offering financial comfort to its car-part suppliers and dealerships. The move marks the first time that a company outside the banking sector has approached the Government for financial help since the credit crisis erupted 18 months ago.

Follow-up meetings with Lord Mandelson’s officials are believed to have involved representatives from other car manufacturers with UK plants, including Ford and Honda, which are anxious not to be put at a competitive disadvantage.

The Times understands that the Government is likely to take a cautious approach to any bailout requests, unwilling to allow Vauxhall to become the Northern Rock of the motor sector. While the Business Secretary may authorise short-term measures such as limited bridging loans on commercial terms, it does not want to repeat the sector-wide rescue of the industry seen in the 1970s.

EU rules would normally preclude state aid to car manufacturers. However, officials in Brussels are under pressure not to block emergency financial arrangements that safeguard jobs during the recession.

The future of Vauxhall hangs in the balance as its American parent — General Motors – begs for an immediate $3 billion loan from Washington to stay afloat. Car sales have collapsed in the US with sales of GM cars down 41 per cent in November.

Rick Wagoner, the chief executive of GM, warned Washington this week that without an $18 billion loan, of which $3 billion must be made available immediately, the carmaker will have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to buy time to stave off creditors while it slashes costs and tries to work out how to survive.

Vauxhall and Opel, another GM subsidiary in Europe, are believed to be in a more vulnerable position because of growing opposition in America to the use of taxpayers’ money to prop up ailing foreign businesses.

Executives at Vauxhall have been preparing for the worst-case scenario and have drawn up contingency plans that include both outright redundancies and shortening the working week. The company has two main manufacturing plants in the UK – Ellesmere Port, which makes the Astra, and Luton, which manufactures the Vivaro van.

Vauxhall employs around 5,000 workers in Britain, but estimates that the collapse of the company would affect 50,000 workers employed by part suppliers, dealerships and local businesses that cater for the factories.

Courtesy: Times Online

Motorola gets 'junk' rating from S&P

SAN FRANCISCO: Motorola Inc had its credit rating lowered to junk status by Standard & Poor’s because its declining handset business is eating into profitability.

The rating was cut two levels to BB+, one notch below investment grade, S&P said today in a statement. On Dec 2, Moody’s Investors Service said it may downgrade Motorola’s debt, currently rated Baa2, or two levels above non-investment grade.

Co-Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jha is trying to turn around the phone business using Google Inc’s Android software to build more advanced phones. He’s going up against Apple Inc, Research In Motion Ltd and Samsung Electronics Co, while also facing the global economic slump. Motorola said in October it won’t meet a goal of splitting off the mobile-phone unit by the third quarter of 2009.

“Revenues and profits in the first part of the year will be challenged by a narrower, somewhat-dated product portfolio,” S&P’s Bruce Hyman said in the statement. “Standard & Poor’s also expects about 10 percent fewer handsets to be sold worldwide in 2009 at lower average prices than in 2008.”

Motorola’s handset business has lost about $2.8 billion in operating income since the start of 2007. The company’s other units, which include networking gear, “partly offset these difficulties,” Hyman wrote.

Market share
Motorola lost its top ranking in the US mobile-phone market, the world’s biggest, to Samsung last quarter. Motorola had a 21.1 per cent share, while Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung had 22.4 per cent, giving it the top spot for the first time, according to Newton, Massachusetts-based research firm Strategy Analytics.

Motorola’s 5.375 per cent notes maturing in November 2012 fell 0.3 cent on the dollar to 91.2 cents on the dollar, according to Trace, the bond price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The yield rose to 8.02 per cent.

The cost of protecting Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola’s bonds from default has increased 65 per cent in the past month. Credit-default swaps on Motorola climbed to 520 basis points at 4 pm New York time, up from 314.2 on Nov 5, according to CMA DataVision.

Motorola shares rose 4 cents to $4.36 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have dropped 73 per cent this year.

Courtesy: Times of India

Gone in 30 days: Over 5 lakh jobs in US

WASHINGTON: Employers in the United States axed 533,000 jobs in November, the biggest monthly cut in 34 years, the US Labour Department said on Friday, as the year-old recession hammered every corner of the American economy.

Oil prices and the dollar weakened and US Treasury bond prices rallied on the news that confirms the recession was now hitting activity across the board.

“You can’t get much uglier than this. The economy has just collapsed, and has gone into a free fall,” said Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York.

The Labour Department said the unemployment rate rose to 6.7% last month to the highest reading since 1993, compared with 6.5% in October.

“This is a clear employment blow out. Firms are reacting as dramatically as they can to make sure they have cost structures they can survive the recession we are in,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

November’s job losses were the steepest since December 1974, when 602,000 jobs were shed, and were much worse than forecast by analysts who had predicted a reduction of 340,000 jobs.

In addition, job losses in recent months turned out to be worse than previously reported. October’s loss was revised to show a cut of 320,000, originally given as a 240,000 loss, while September’s drop was revised to 403,000 from 284,000.

That meant 199,000 more jobs were lost in September and October than previously thought and the total reduction in US nonfarm payrolls for the last three months was 1.256 million, with almost 2 million shed in the year so far. “It’s just a disaster,” said Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at RBS Greenwich in Greenwich, Connecticut.

“These numbers are shocking,” said economist Naroff. “Companies are sharply reacting to the economy’s problems and slashing costs. They are not trying to ride it out.”

Service-providing businesses alone shed 370,000 jobs in November, or two-thirds of the overall job declines, following a loss of 153,000 jobs the month before.

That meant labour market weakness has now shifted over from the goods-producing sectors of the economy to the far more important services sector, which delivers almost 80% of US output.

The length of the workweek slipped to 33.5 hours, the shortest since records began in 1964, a Labour Department official said.

The US tipped into recession last December, a panel of experts declared earlier this week, confirming what many Americans already thought.

Courtesy: Times of India

BPOs may lose 2.5 lakh jobs

NEW DELHI: Business Process Outsourcing firms are likely to see 2.5 lakh job losses by the first quarter of 2009 in the wake of downturn in the US and other developed economies, BPO industry association said.

Though the industry is likely to see thousands of job losses, the silver lining is that the recession would compel more companies in the US and Europe to look at outsourcing as a way to cut costs and improve efficiencies, the Business Process Industry Association of India (BPIAI) President Samir Chopra said.

Praveen Sengar, Head-Software, Services & Industry (Vertical Reserach), IDC India Ltd saidthe slowdown is likely to impact expansion plans of the industry, as the time taken for signing up new clients is taking longer time.

"It will also result in greater consolidation and promote diversification into areas hitherto considered as non-core activities," Sengar said.

Chopra said that urgent government measures are required to boost the industry, specially for the medium and small enterprises.

Both fiscal and administrative measures like extending tax relief for another 5-10 years and export promotion steps, including market development fund is need of the hour, Chopra said.

He further said the terrorist attacks in Mumbai has led to the widespread cancellations of visits and forthcoming international events.

Courtesy: Times of India

SBI issues 2,000 job letters in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: At a time when the financial sector all over the world is collapsing, the State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest public sector bank, is expanding in a major way.

Banking sources said this week SBI has issued job offer letters to around 2,000 persons, selected out of the two lakh persons who had applied for jobs, mostly clerical, from the state. Earlier, it was decided that 1800 persons will be recruited from Gujarat but the number was raised because the bank found more potential in the state.

The new recruits will be designated as customer relations associates and will be permanent employees. About 115 officers had also been recruited by the bank recently in Gujarat for its 962 branches. The bank has mopped up Rs 8163 deposits from April to November this year, as against the total deposits of Rs 4200 crore in the whole of 2007-08.

HC Pattnaik, chief general manager of SBI in Gujarat, said the recruitment test was conducted in July and personal interviews were carried out in October. Nearly 24 lakh applications were received from across the country.

SBI has shown a staggering growth in deposits as more and more people across the country have liquidated their holdings in other instruments, and even private sector banks, to play safe with the country's biggest bank.

Courtesy: Times of India

Nomura says to cut up to 1,000 staff in London

TOKYO: Nomura Holdings Inc said it would cut its staff in London by up to 1,000 people. The decision follows an internal review after the purchase of parts of Lehman Brothers, Nomura said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday.

Courtesy: Times of India

Goldman Sachs now sees loss of 400,000 jobs in Nov

NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs has revised up its forecast for US job losses in November to 400,000 after reports showing a dismal employment picture in the private sector, particularly in services.

The analysts at Goldman had previously forecast a decline of 350,000 jobs. The median estimate in a Reuters poll conducted on Friday was -320,000. The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing survey fell to a record low, as did its employment index.

"Most reports on employment conditions in November have shown additional weakness relative to earlier months, but today's ISM report on conditions outside manufacturing was particularly noteworthy," said Goldman economists in a research note.

"The employment index from this report, which has predictive power for payrolls in the top-down models we have developed, fell more than 10 points from a level that was already the lowest on record for this indicator."

The report also cited weakness in small and medium-sized firms as potentially compounding the pain in the labor market.

Courtesy: Times of India

GM, Chrysler considering bankruptcy to get bailout

General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC are considering accepting a pre-arranged bankruptcy as the last-resort price of getting a multi billion dollar government bailout, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with internal discussions.

In response to automakers' bailout plea, staff for three members of Congress have asked restructuring experts if a pre-arranged bankruptcy - negotiated with workers, creditors and lenders - could be used to reorganize the sector without liquidation, media said. General Motors and Chrysler could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

Industry executives and analysts say the immediate carnage from a bankruptcy of General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co or Chrysler would spread throughout an industry that is bleeding cash in a global slowdown. All three automakers have urged Congress to authorize $34 billion in loans and credit lines, saying they will restructure, and cut models, jobs and executive pay to remain viable.

The White House did not dismiss the industry's $34 billion figure on Wednesday but said it was too early to say what it might support on an emergency basis.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid wants to try to find a way to avert threatened bankruptcies in the U.S. auto industry with Detroit Three chief executives readying for a make-or-break hearing on Thursday on the bailout request.

Negotiations currently are splintered among small groups, making it unlikely that a proposed solution such as bankruptcy would emerge until next week at the earliest, the person briefed on internal talks told Bloomberg.

GM's failure alone would mean more than $200 billion in interest-bearing debt at the carmaker and its GMAC financing arm could be worthless for countless retirees and taxpayers, further upsetting consumption patterns.

Courtesy: Times of India

AT&T, Adobe set to axe 12,600 jobs

NEW YORK: Continuing with job cutting spree in corporate America, telecom major AT&T will slash 12,000 jobs while software maker Adobe will reduce its workforce by 600.

AT&T in a statement said it planned reduction of about 12,000 jobs or about four per cent of its total workforce.

Adobe has said it would slash 600 full-time positions worldwide. "The restructuring will result in anticipated pre-tax charges totalling approximately $44 to 50 million. Meanwhile, DuPont will cut 2,500 jobs and said it will not turn a profit in fourth quarter as a severe slowdown in markets eats away at chemical sales.

Courtesy: Times of India

Fears for 30,000 jobs at BoA/Merrill

Fresh fears emerged on Wednesday that as many as 30,000 jobs could go after Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch. The bad news for the 260,000-strong combined workforce at the two banks came as an influential employment survey reported record layoffs in the financial services sector in November.

It was one of a number of dire reports on jobs released before Friday's official employment report, which is expected to show that American employers cut as many as 360,000 jobs last month.

Economists gave warning that depressing employment data could send already nervous stock markets tumbling. Rob Carnell, chief international economist at ING, described the outlook for the labour market statistics as “very, very bad”. He said: “Any decline in payrolls of the magnitudes we now expect could drive already jittery markets into a substantial reaction.”

CNBC reported yesterday that Bank of America (BoA) could cut up to 30,000 jobs as it subsumes Merrill Lynch — three times as many staff losses as previously estimated. Ken Lewis, BoA's chief executive, is seeking to extract savings of $7 billion (£4.7 billion) from the $50 billion all-share deal. He declined to comment on the report yesterday, telling the Charlotte Observer that the bank was in the “final stage of our analysis” for job reductions in its Merrill Lynch purchase.

Related Links
Nomura to cut up to 1,000 London jobs
Citigroup to cut another 52,000 employees
Most of the cuts are expected to come from Merrill Lynch, the world's biggest brokerage, which was forced to find a suitor in September as a way out of its funding crisis. John Thain, Merrill Lynch's chief executive, admitted in October that the deal would result in “thousands” of layoffs.

Yesterday, the Challenger Report, published by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, America's oldest outplacement firm, said that 91,000 jobs had been shed in the financial services sector in November, hitting a nine-year high.

It is the first snapshot of recent job losses at the banks and other financial companies since Monday's announcement that the economy has been in recession for a full year. The last time that job losses in the financial sector came close to November's figure was in March 1999, when 22,000 positions were lost amid the Russian and Asian crises. November's figures were a sharp increase on the 18,000 layoffs reported for October and the 7,000 cut in November last year. About 226,000 jobs have been lost in American financial services so far this year.

The growing fears over jobs came as the Federal Reserve's Beige Book report found that economic activity had weakened further in recent weeks.

The report, which will be used by the central bank's policymakers for their December meeting on interest rates, indicated a further decline in already grim economic conditions.

“Overall economic activity weakened across all Federal Reserve districts since the last report,” The Beige Book said. It noted weak consumer spending and that car sales were “down significantly” in most regions.Manufacturing declined and housing remained soft, due to “reduced selling prices and low, but stable, sales activity”.

The Beige Book, based on a survey of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, found few bright spots. Significantly, the report found credit conditions tightening, further constricting economy activity. “Lending contracted, with many districts reporting reductions in residential, commercial and industrial lending and tightening lending standards,” it said.

Courtesy: Times Online

Microsoft to support Russia's IT

MOSCOW: Microsoft plans to provide Russian IT market newbies with $100 million (78 million euros) worth of software and technical support, Russia'
s communications ministry said.

"Together with Russian venture funds (Microsoft) will choose 1,000 software producers whom Microsoft is willing to offer software, support and consultations," the ministry said in a statement on its website, following talks between Communications Minister Igor Shchegolev and Microsoft International's president Jean-Philippe Courtois.

The packages are worth about 100,000 dollars apiece, it added. Microsoft also plans to set up a network of education centers in Russia to teach budding entrepreneurs business basics and provide small businesses with discounts on its software, it said.

Courtois also said Microsoft had abandoned the idea of bringing prices on Russian-language software up to European standards.

Courtesy: Times of India

Ten tips to cope with pink slips

Coutesy: Times of India

Are you part of a burgeoning crowd that has either been given a pink slip, or a warning signal by the employers, thanks to the economic crisis? Don't lose hope. There is sliver lining to every cloud. With most companies trying to cut costs by downsizing workforce, it is a difficult time for IT pros. The bad job market situation only makes the crisis worse. So how can one deal with the current turbulent economic phase? How not to get disheartened even after getting a pink slip, or depressed having to live under the constant fear of getting laid off anytime? Here are a few tips that can help you better cope with the current challenging economic environment. But before going over to the tips remember, one always learns more from the defeats than from the victories.

Brush up your CV

If your CV still wears that jaded look, please shred it and begin anew. High time you reinvent your resume and put in your best effort before contacting the prospective employers. Wondering how to do this? Just search online. There are numerous sites that guide you how to best frame the right covering letter and resume for that 'perfect' job. Also, you can take help from placement consultants. They can possibly guide you what an employer looks for in a resume, especially in the current times.

Acquire new qualifications

If you are among those who jumped onto the BPO bandwagon immediately after graduation, this is just the right time for you to add to your educational qualification. Another academic or professional qualification will further enrich your BPO experience and, of course, open doors to a better profile. If you are not among the BPO category, you can go for courses that will further strengthen your experience. Look for a specialised course related to your current field, or area of expertise. Remember, education is an investment which always pays.

Arm yourself with soft skills

With changing times, the requirements of workplaces are changing too. So why not leverage the current phase to augment those soft skills which you always thought you had, but needed a little brushing up. This way, you can well defy the commonly held view that techies only understand the language of computers. You can even hit a grooming class! Brush up skills like how to better your presentations, how to write that perfect mail and those other interpersonal nuances. Remember, recession will pass, but these skills will stay with you forever and boost your career as well as personality.

Try turning an entrepreneur

Recession is the best time for one to look beyond the obvious. How about cashing in on all the aggression that you showed at those customer interactions, sales meets, or in cracking the deals? Channelise the same energy to bring out the entrepreneur within you. Heard stories of how the foundation of many a big enterprises was laid during the toughest of times. Some of the biggest tech czars of today -- IBM, Microsoft and HP -- have risen from the rubble of the most difficult recessions that have ravaged global economy. History is full of tales of successful startups that were born out of deepest recessions. So start now: think out of the box, revise your ideas list, unleash your creative side, look for opportunities and tap all of them to see if you can embark on your own venture.

Time for networking

The economic crisis hitting the firms across the globe has further increased the usage of professional networking sites like Xing and LinkedIn as people try to discover job opportunities through networking. No prizes for guessing that being connected pays, especially in tough times. You never know which of your connection can help you land a job, or give a positive reference. Networking platforms primarily help people share their professional interests and build contacts. Unlike other social networking sites like Facebook, Orkut or MySpace, these sites have a focussed business approach. So this is perhaps the right time for you to market yourself online, and beyond.

Depressed? Go & party!

Those late working hours never gave you time to socialise. How about starting it now? Remember, you worked hard. Now is the time to let your hair down and party harder, instead of letting all that stress get to you. With recession hitting all major sectors across the globe, it is the time for you to market yourself rightly. Parties can be a good forum for that. Position yourself and build contacts among people from various spheres of life, and what better place than all those social dos that you otherwise skipped. You never know who, where may be your knight in the shining armour. So, it may not be such a bad idea to acquire that P3P (Page 3 parties for the uninitiated) persona after all!

Acquire secondary skills

Thought a tech job is all that you can do? If, for instance, coding is your core area of work, and you believe that is all you can ever do, you may be wrong. There may be other choices that you would otherwise have never explored. One option could be to look within the sector and identify other job profiles that are still in demand. Say project managers, operations managers and the like. Also, you may look at peripheral options like IT management, or IT training. For some, tech teaching may be a good future career option. So brush up skills for such profiles and streamline your approach. For all you know, the shift may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Cut costs, increase savings

This can also be a good time to introspect. Think hard, and dwell upon your mistakes and the lessons learnt, if any. In future, be ready with a contingency plan as misfortune can come knocking at the door anytime. For now, you too can chalk out belt-tightening steps that cut any avoidable expenses. Keep liquidity. It will help you tide over any crunch situation. If investing in stocks or mutual funds doesn't jell with your idea of investment, consult a portfolio manager as he may give you a clearer investment picture. Investing in gold or real estate may be wise options, but again go by the market trends in a planned manner.

Destress yourself

Being laid off is often seen as a stigma many are not able to cope up with. Do not see this as a reflection upon your capabilities. Instead, see it as a silver lining that life has provided. Sit back, reflect, and think about alternatives in life that you may have wanted to pursue for a long time. Look at it from another perspective: work pressures never permitted you to gather enough courage to ask your boss to ask for that sabbatical. Yes, you got it. This is the time! Remember, sitting and brooding will take you nowhere, definitely not out of your self-formed well of unhappiness! It is time to recognise that you are stressed and take steps that distress you adequately. Take up things like Yoga, Reiki, Pranayam, wellness or meditation courses, or indulge in hobby pursuits such as dancing, reading, sports... Why, you can even start your own blog and express yourself in a manner like no other as blogging is a great stress buster in itself.

Nothing helps like help

What better time to do some social work! Why not join or assist organisations working for social causes like poverty, social upliftment or may be healthcare. Identify the causes you feel about the most and extend your time and support to those. You will utilise your time well and feel very worthy at the same time. You can also help your neighbourhood welfare association, or may be indulge in some long overdue community work. Old age homes, which also require a lot of volunteers, is another option. Volunteering for Polio or AIDS campaigns can also be quite morally fulfilling and uplifting. A heightened self-esteem can work wonders for you in many respects.

US employers announce a combined 20,000 job cuts

ST LOUIS: A round of more than 15,000 layoffs announced by AT&T Inc, DuPont and Viacom Inc suggests a yearlong wave of US job cuts is
accelerating, just as the government is expected to report a higher unemployment rate for November on Friday.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse Group has announced 5,300 job cuts, although it's unclear how many will be in the United States.

The latest layoffs coincided with a government report showing the proportion of workers continuing to receive jobless benefits has matched a level last reached in September 1992. The deepening recession is pressuring companies to slash costs, and payroll is typically the quickest and most efficient way to do it.

Yesterday's announced job cuts spanned an array of economic sectors, hitting telecom workers, bankers, salespeople and chemical manufacturers. The breadth of the layoffs suggests the pain of the recession will be felt broadly and well into 2009.

Dallas-based AT&T plans to cut 12,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its work force. The nation's biggest telecommunications company said the job cuts will begin this month and continue throughout 2009.

Wilmington, Delaware-based chemical company Dupont will cut 2,500 jobs and cut back hours for remaining workers. It also plans to eliminate 4,000 contractors this month, with more contractor cuts in 2009.

New York-based media conglomerate Viacom will cut about 850 jobs, or 7 percent of its work force.

Credit Suisse's 5,300 planned job cuts worldwide represents about 11 percent of its work force.

Courtesy: Times of India

HP freezes salaries to cut costs

SAN FRANCISCO: Hewlett-Packard Co, the world’s largest personal-computer maker, is freezing salaries as part of Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd’s efforts to contain costs, people familiar with the plan said.

Employees have been notified by e-mail that they won’t receive a salary increase in fiscal 2009, which began in November, according to two people who asked not to be identified because the message was confidential. The only exceptions will be in countries where pay freezes are illegal, the two people said.

Hurd has cut jobs, closed offices and merged data centers to lift profit, even as he expands through acquisitions. Hewlett- Packard also is limiting travel, curtailing hiring and eliminating “favorite science projects” to save on research costs in 2009, Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said last month on a conference call.

Hewlett-Packard, which has 320,000 employees, declined to confirm the salary freeze. “In this difficult macroeconomic environment, we believe it is prudent and responsible to reduce costs where possible,” said spokeswoman Emma McCulloch. “H-P has a longstanding and disciplined approach to managing costs in order to invest in the company’s growth.”

Hewlett-Packard, based in Palo Alto, California, fell $1.43 to $33.39 at 4 pm in New York Stock Exchange trading. The shares have dropped 34 per cent this year.

Hurd, who became CEO in 2005, received $25.3 million in total compensation in fiscal 2007.

Tighter budgets
Worldwide technology spending growth will slow to 2.6 per cent next year, less than half the rate initially predicted, research firm IDC said last month. Growth in the US will decelerate to 0.9 per cent, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company estimated.

The company also said it will only hire workers for “revenue-generating positions,” reduce spending on contractors and limit travel to customer-related activities, according to the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News.

“These are difficult actions, but necessary in the current environment,” said the message, which was distributed by Hewlett-Packard’s division chiefs.

Hewlett-Packard’s PC sales, which account for about a third of revenue, rose 10 percent to $11.2 billion last quarter, beating some estimates. Demand for notebooks offset declining printer sales in a shrinking economy. The company is the world’s top printer maker and also sells software, server computers, storage devices and services.

Profit forecast
Last month, Hurd forecast a rise in profit to as much as $4.03 a share this fiscal year, more than the $3.89 anticipated by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Investors took that as a sign the company is prepared to squeeze more profit out of sales as customers reduce spending.

“It will be a challenging environment and we’re planning on such,” Hurd, 51, said on a Nov 23 conference call with reporters. “We can only control the things we can control, which is our cost structure and the competitiveness of our products.”

This week, Hewlett-Packard raised $2 billion in debt to help fund its $13.2 billion purchase of Electronic Data Systems Corp. It acquired that company in August to expand its services business.

Courtesy: Times of India

Sr IT execs fired for faking degree

NEW DELHI: Broadcom Corp, the maker of chips for phones and consumer electronics, fired Senior Vice President Vahid Manian after questions surfaced about the validity of academic degrees listed in his company biography.

A search has begun for his replacement, the company said today in a regulatory filing. Manian didn’t earn degrees from the University of California at Irvine that are cited on the company’s web site, according to the school’s registrar.

Manian also serves on the board of STEC Inc with Microsemi Corp Chief Executive Officer James Peterson, who faces separate questions about his credentials. Peterson, who lists degrees from Brigham Young University in government filings, never received them from that school, said Carri Jenkins, a university spokeswoman in Provo, Utah. Peterson did take classes there from 1978 to 1980, Jenkins said.

Manian’s firing is the first action taken by one of the three businesses tied to the executives, which are all technology companies in California’s Orange County. His departure follows the retirement of MGM Mirage Chairman and CEO Terry Lanni, who stepped down last month after similar questions surfaced about his MBA from the University of Southern California. MGM said the claims didn’t influence his decision.

Broadcom’s site said Manian had bachelor’s and master’s of business administration degrees from the University of California at Irvine. The executive, who oversaw global manufacturing at Broadcom, attended the school between September 1979 and August 1983 but wasn’t awarded any degrees, said Mark Fonseca, who is responsible for privacy issues in the registrar’s office.

No MBA record
Fonseca said Manian attended classes for four years but didn’t graduate. He said he isn’t allowed by law to disclose why Manian didn’t receive a degree. The school had no record of Manian studying for an MBA, Fonseca said.

Manian joined Irvine-based Broadcom in 1996 as director of operations after a stint at Silicon Systems Inc. Microsemi’s Peterson said he had vetted and hired Manian when the two worked at that company.

Peterson said today that he “categorically denies” misrepresenting degrees from Brigham Young University.

“I am working directly with the university to clarify this situation,” Peterson said in a statement. “I have every reason to expect that Brigham Young will investigate this allegation shortly and officially confirm my degrees.”

Peterson said a background check on him may have mistakenly used the name James J. Patterson.

‘Very careful’
Brigham Young’s Jenkins said in an interview after the statement that she checked degree records again and couldn’t find any record of a degree for Peterson. She said she had been checking the right name.

“We are always very careful when we release this kind of information,” she said.

Microsemi fell $2.88, or 16 percent, to $15.47 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Broadcom rose $1.27 to $15.51, while STEC gained 2 cents to $4.91.

Microsemi’s Peterson serves with Manian on STEC’s audit, compensation, and nominating and corporate-governance committees.

A US government security clearance application form provided by Peterson lists his position at Microsemi and states that he has bachelor’s and MBA degrees from Brigham Young. A regulatory filing for STEC also lists the degrees.

Associate’s degree
Peterson was awarded an associate’s degree in arts, sciences and general education from Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, in December 1978, said Kyle Martin, registrar of Brigham Young University Idaho. In 2001, Ricks College became Brigham Young University Idaho, which is separate from the school in Utah, he said. As a former junior college, it couldn’t have conferred a higher degree, he said.

The discrepancies were uncovered by Barry Minkow, co-founder of the Fraud Discovery Institute, which looks into the backgrounds of executives.
Minkow served more than seven years in prison, from 1988 to 1995, after being convicted of fraud while running a company called ZZZZ Best Co.

Minkow almost always holds a position in securities his organization reports on, according to a disclaimer on his Web site. He said he has put options on STEC and Microsemi shares, and doesn’t own a position in Broadcom.

Peterson said in an interview that he earned credits during his military service that counted toward the degree from Brigham Young. He didn’t provide a university transcript after earlier saying he would.

Cliff Silver, a spokesman for Microsemi, referred inquiries to the CEO. The Irvine-based company makes chips for military and aerospace customers.

Manouch Moshayedi, STEC’S chief executive officer, defended Manian and Peterson yesterday in a telephone interview, saying they were “extremely competent.” STEC, based in Santa Ana, California, makes memory chips.

Minkow also raised the questions about MGM’s Lanni, who listed an MBA in his company biography. Lanni responded that he did receive an honorary MBA from the University of Southern California.

Courtesy: Times of India

Infy to freeze hiring, no job cuts

NEW DELHI: Infosys Technologies Ltd will freeze recruitment after meeting this fiscal year's target of hiring 25,000 staff, a telling sign the glo
bal downturn is hitting India's $52 billion outsourcing sector.

India's second largest software services firm however has no plans to cut jobs and is sticking with its third quarter outlook, CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan told reporters.

He said the outsourcing sector's growth rate would halve next year as some customers delay orders.

"Last year the IT industry grew more than 30 per cent, this year it is looking at somewhere in the region of 15 per cent," Gopalakrishnan said.

India's export-driven IT sector, used to a scorching pace of growth, has been hit by the financial crisis and recession in the United States, which contributes more than half their revenue.

In the last few years, the outsourcing industry has created tens of thousands of jobs, mainly attracting young workers, as global companies look to trim labour costs.

Infosys hired 16,000-17,000 employees in the first half of the fiscal year that began in April and would honour commitments to 6,000 under training, Gopalakrishnan said.

Infosys, which counts Goldman Sachs and Philips Electronics among its clients, cut its full-year dollar revenue outlook in October due to the worsening global downturn.
Gopalakrishnan said that the company would freeze fresh recruitment, apart from meeting specific skill needs.

"We will have to look at controlling our cost, controlling our expenses making sure that we run an optimised business. We will have to look at what are things we need to do in order to prepare ourselves for the recovery."

"Growth is coming more and more from emerging markets so these are the things we need to prepare ourselves. We should not lose momentum in this s
lowdown," he said.

But Infosys still expects its strong client base and a weakening rupee to help it meet a forecast for December quarter earnings of $0.57 a share. The Indian rupee has fallen nearly six per cent so far this quarter against the dollar.

"Infosys is seeing further degradation of the demand environment, with headwinds from leadership changes at customers, a shrinking large deal pipeline .... Pricing pressure has emerged," CLSA Asia-Pacific said in a report this week.

By 0845 GMT, Infosys shares were up 2 per cent in a Mumbai market, but outperforming a 4 per cent gain in the broader Mumbai market. Infosys shares have fallen 33 per cent so far this year.

Courtesy: Times of India

Adobe cuts jobs, lowers outlook

SAN FRANCISCO: Adobe Systems Inc lowered is revenue outlook and said it will eliminate 600 jobs, or around 8 per cent of its workforce, due to the
weak economy, sending its stock down 7 per cent in extended trading.

"The global economic crisis significantly impacted our revenue during the fourth quarter," said Shantanu Narayen, the company's chief executive, in a statement. "We have taken action to reduce our operating costs and fine-tune the focus of our resources on key strategic priorities."

Adobe spokeswoman Jodi Sorensen said it would be an across-the-board headcount reduction, impacting all geographic regions and company divisions.

The maker of Acrobat Reader, Flash and Photoshop software took its revenue outlook for the fiscal fourth-quarter ended November 28 to a range of $912 million to $915 million from its earlier view of $925 million to $955 million.

The company also said it expects fourth-quarter adjusted earnings in a range of 59 cents to 60 cents a share, higher than its previous forecast, as it benefited from two favorable tax items.

For the February quarter, Adobe forecast revenue of $800 million to $850 million, well below analysts' forecast range of $846 million to $1.02 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

Adobe cited weaker-than-expected demand for its new Creative Suite 4 family of products, which began shipping in the quarter, as the main cause of the revenue shortfall.

CS4 is a package of tools for graphical designers that includes Photoshop photo-editing software, 3D computer drawing programme Illustrator, Dreamweaver for designing websites and Soundbooth for audio-editing.

In a conference call in September, Narayen told investors that CS4 would be Adobe's biggest product introduction ever.

The company will record $44 million to $50 million in charges related to the headcount reduction, with $28 million to $30 million of the total coming in the fourth-quarter.

Shares of the San Jose, California-based company closed the regular session up 54 cents, or 2.5 per cent, at $22.54 and fell to $20.55 in extended trading.

Courtesy: Times of India

Goldman Sachs now sees loss of 400,000 jobs in Nov

NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs has revised up its forecast for US job losses in November to 400,000 after reports showing a dismal employment picture in
the private sector, particularly in services.

The analysts at Goldman had previously forecast a decline of 350,000 jobs. The median estimate in a Reuters poll conducted on Friday was -320,000. The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing survey
fell to a record low, as did its employment index.

"Most reports on employment conditions in November have shown additional weakness relative to earlier months, but today's ISM report on conditions outside manufacturing was particularly noteworthy," said Goldman economists in a research note.

"The employment index from this report, which has predictive power for payrolls in the top-down models we have developed, fell more than 10 points from a level that was already the lowest on record for this indicator."

The report also cited weakness in small and medium-sized firms as potentially compounding the pain in the labor market.

Courtesy: Times of India

Look how Google is cutting costs

NEW YORK: Feeling the pinch of the global economic slowdown and the US recession in particular, Google, the Internet search engine giant, is res
orting to austerity measures, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Prominent among them include cutting new projects, ratcheting back spending, chipping away at perks and reducing employee strength. Such measure from Google, which is known for its generous perks, has come as a surprise to many industry watchers.

The latest Google measures are understandable as its revenue growth has slowed down dramatically over the past one year. Google's share price on Tuesday was $275.11 as compared to $741.79 in November 2007.

“We have to behave as though we don't know what's going to happen,” Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal.

The company will curtail the “dark matter,” Schmidt said, projects that “haven't really caught on” and “aren't really that exciting.”

Schmidt said the company is “not going to give” an engineer 20 people to work with on certain experimental projects anymore. Popular social networking site Orkut was a product of this experiment by Google. Schmidt, however, promised to get this back when things improve.

Google executives had started preparing for the slowdown about a year ago, but things have now accelerated. In recent weeks, Schmidt has held meetings with top executives to determine where to focus investment more narrowly, the Journal said.

Top priorities include display ads, which use graphics and appear on Web pages; advertising on mobile phones; and the company's online business software.

Schmidt says the company is shifting more engineering and sales resources to those areas, and away from less-promising projects. Teams on projects the company is merely "fiddling with," he says, will get "naturally smaller as people get plucked off,” the report said.

The Wall Street Journal said the financial crisis has created a new sense of urgency within the company. Top executives say they remain committed to projects they believe hold long-term potential, but are prepared to “starve” lesser ones.

Courtesy: Times of India

Wipro puts 9,800 freshers on hold

BANGALORE: Reeling under the impact of global meltdown, Wipro Technologies Ltd has kept about 9,800 graduate engineers, hired from campuses last
year, waiting to join the IT bellwether, a company official said.

"Of the total 13,500 campus offerings made across the country last year, we have taken 3,700 of them so far, while the remaining (9,800) have been told to wait for their turn to join," Wipro vice-president for talent acquisition Pradeep Bahirwani told reporters at a hurriedly called press conference.

Due to slowdown in the IT industry and tough business environment, Bahirwani said, the company had discontinued campus offerings this fiscal for the time being.

"We have made 8,000 campus offers across the country in about 200 engineering colleges, including IITs and NITs (National Institutes of Technologies) this year as against 13,500 last year," Bahirwani said.

To make better use of the engineering freshers hired but not absorbed, the company has began to offer them the option of joining its BPO (business processes outsourcing) division at its software development centres in Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad for the same compensation fixed for IT services.

"To meet our BPO division's requirements in technical support, we have offered them the choice of coming onboard or wait as long for the joining date at the salary stack made in the offer letter. We hope to see a turn-around in business after 12-18 months to move them to IT services," Bahirwani said.

The company's novel initiative to ask freshers hired for IT services to join BPO division by paying upfront Rs 75,000 for bond backfired in Kolkata, with the hired engineers protesting against such the move and taking up the matter with West Bengal IT Minister Debash Das on Monday.

"The option has been given in commensurate with our current requirements, which are more in BPO than in IT services, as technical support role
requires engineering grads and not those from science or general stream. There is no compulsion or change in compensation," Bahirwani clarified.

Defending the offer to join the BPO division, the HR official said the decision was taken to give an opportunity to engineering graduates to get on work without further delay.

Wipro's global IT services business had 97,552 employees, including 16,500 in the BPO division till the second quarter (July-September) of this fiscal.

Courtesy: Times of India

Telecom Italia to cut 4,000 jobs

ROME: Debt-burdened Telecom Italia, Europe's fifth-biggest telecoms provider, will shed non-core assets worth up to $3.82 billion and cut 5 per
cent of its workforce in a bid to slash borrowings and trim costs amid a weak economy.

But the company confirmed it aims to strengthen its presence in Brazil as part of its 2009-2011 business plan announced, despite recent reports that it could consider splitting off or selling the unit.

The strategy focuses heavily on slashing costs and trimming its 37 billion euro debt load and relies on growth largely from Italy and Brazil. Telecom's Brazil unit, TIM Participacoes SA, has seen the highest growth for years in the group.

It will also expand in Argentina by exercising a call option to raise its stake in Sofora, the company which controls Telecom Argentina. Non-core assets worth up to 3 billion euros will be divested.

Telecom Italia said it would work to cut overall costs and investments by some 2 billion euros over the next three years, with 40 per cent of those savings coming in 2009. It will cut 4,000 jobs, on top of existing plans to cut 5,000 jobs by 2010. It had around 80,000 employees at the end of September.

The company said it expects 2009 revenue and organic earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortisation (EBITDA) in line with those of 2008, and forecast investments of around 4.8 billion euros next year.

It expects to grow organic revenues by 3 per cent annually over the three-year period, while generating free cash flow of around 22 billion euros. It forecast cutting its net debt/EBITDA ratio to 2.3 by 2011 from around 3 in 2008.

Telecom Italia shares have halved in value from a year ago partly over doubts related to its belt-tightening strategy. They are trading at around one euro, giving the company a market value of about 17.55 billion euros.

But its shares have rallied nearly 13 per cent over the past month amid signs Chief Executive Franco Bernabe's efforts to trim debt and cut costs without major fireworks are bearing fruit.

Courtesy: Times of India

Fujitsu Siemens to cut 700 jobs

FRANKFURT: Fujitsu Siemens Computers plans to slash around 700 jobs in Germany -- 12 per cent of its workforce in the country -- due to continue
d competitive and economic challenges, it said.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers Holdings (FSC) is Europe's biggest maker of personal computers and employs about 10,500 worldwide, most of whom are in Germany.

It said the job cuts were not a result of its new ownership structure but rather a move to improve profitability and competitiveness.

Management began talks with union representatives about the plans on Thursday, Fujitsu Siemens said.

Earlier this month, Japanese electronics conglomerate Fujitsu Ltd said it will buy Siemens AG's 50 per cent stake in the business for 450 million euros ($580.5 million).

Fujitsu had said at the time it had no plans for any job cuts.

Profit margins are thin in the PC business, which is largely commoditised and fiercely competitive on price.

Wipro to recruits: Join BPO for now

BANGALORE: India’s third largest software exporter Wipro is asking its latest batch of recruits from engineering colleges if they want to join its business process outsourcing (BPO) division instead of the technology services unit for which they were originally hired.

Wipro said it is offering the option because it sees delays in the joining dates for some batches of recruits due to the ‘current business environment.’ According to sources, the students have been given the option of working in the BPO division for a year and later they could be shifted to the IT services vertical. The salary from the original offer remains unchanged.

“Every year campus joining is spread out over the four quarters. This is done for logistical reasons of training and seating. Staggered hiring programme and timelines are also closely linked to our business. Due to current business scenario, we estimate delays in joining dates of some batches of recruits. We are providing them an option of a role in our BPO division. The objective is to let engineering graduates commence work without delay,” Wipro Technologies’ vice president-Talent Acquisition, Pradeep Bahirwani, said.

He declined to comment on the number of recruits who have been given the option or when they were due to join.

The company has made offers to a total of 14,000 students for the 2008-09 fiscal. Wipro said last month that it expects revenue from its IT services business for the October-December third quarter to remain almost unchanged from the $1.1 billion in the previous three-month period because of the deteriorating global economic situation.

Reacting to the slowdown in the key US and European markets, software industry grouping Nasscom is due to revise lower its forecast of a 21-24 per cent increase in IT services exports during the 12 months to March 2009.

There has been a lot of apprehension among students that the difficult economic situation may result in tech companies not honouring the job offer that have been made. But the country’s top three IT services provider--TCS, Infosys and Wipro--have steadfastly maintained that they will keep their word.

At the end of September, Wipro employed nearly 62,000 staff in its IT services business and about 21,000 in the BPO division. It also makes strategic sense for Wipro to recruit the new engineering graduates in the BPO unit as this vertical regularly witnesses higher attrition rates than the IT services division.

Courtesy: Times of India

IT sector high in education fraud

BANGALORE: Education-related discrepancies among the employees in the Indian IT industry has increased during the second quarter of the current
calendar year when compared to the first quarter, according to report by First Advantage.

The IT industry has experienced the highest increase (almost 3.5 times) in education related discrepancies compared to Q1 of 2008, First Advantage said in its second quarterly report ‘Background screening trends-India.’

First Advantage managing director (West Asia) Ashish Dehade said, “Background screening acts as a first line of defence against potential fraud and security breaches. More sectors taking it up actively would employ fewer candidates misrepresenting information and thus, concurrently, fewer likely to engage in frauds or security breaches.”

However, this is not limited to just the IT sector alone as educational qualification-related discrepancies in the banking and financial services (BFSI) sector was the highest in the last quarters.

First Advantage said all the key industries tracked have shown an increase in education-related discrepancies. The report said that maximum discrepancies in educational qualifications were related to institutions in Northern India at 34 per cent, followed by Southern India at 30 per cent.

Almost half (48 per cent) of all fake university cases came from Northern India; followed closely by Western India (43 per cent). Pune topped the city list for education-related discrepancies, followed by Mumbai and Delhi.

Courtesy: Times of India

Wipro too denies layoffs

MUMBAI: Employees with IT firms are spooked by fear of layoffs as demand for IT services slows down.


At some of the top IT firms, talk of layoffs among employees and repeated management clarifications are becoming a regular feature. The latest layoff buzz is coming from Wipro, the country’s third largest IT exporter.

Some employees believe the firm may ask as many as 3,000 to leave because of performance related issues.

Wipro’s HR head-Pratik Kumar has categorically denied this. “This is not true. We have no such plans,” he told ET, in response to a query on whether 3,000 employees with 2 and 2+ years of experience were under review for performance-related issues and could be asked to leave by December.

Wipro is not an isolated case. Recently, there was talk of Satyam laying off around 4,000 people and following reports in the media to that effect, the chairman Ramalinga Raju had sent a mail to all employees re-assuring them that prospects for the firm were bright and urging them not to pay attention to speculation in blogs and the media.

“The mail was sent out to reassure employees because there have been reports in the media that Satyam was handing out pink slips,” a Satyam spokesperson told ET.

India’s biggest IT exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, which has historically had the lowest attrition in the industry at around 10 per cent, reported a spike in its attrition rates to 13 per cent in its second-quarter figures.

The company’s global head-HR, Ajoyendra Mukherjee, was at pains to explain that the spike was not caused by any layoffs but because of certain BPO staffers it took on for a specific project.

“Normally, these staffers are taken on a temporary basis but because of the labour laws in South America we had to take them on our payroll. Th
ey were recruited for the duration of the project. Since attrition is calculated for the last 12 months, you will see a higher percentage even in the third,” he said.

At Wipro, the layoff ‘news’, which has been spreading through the informal grapevine, coincides with the performance-rating exercise the company does twice a year.

“These are not freshers but employees who have been given a ‘below expectations’ rating in more than a couple of appraisals. This is different from what was reported in the media in September--those people are still under review and the actual number is not 3,000 but closer to 1,000,” said one employee. A project manager with one of teams also had similar views.

Involuntary attrition rose to 2.5 per cent in the September quarter for Wipro. In the preceding six quarters, this figure was less than 1 per cent.

“Involuntary attrition of 2.5 per cent is due to performance and other aspects. Our process is very transparent, and employees are aware of where they stand. This is an exercise we do every year,” Kumar said.

To date, there have been fewer layoff rumours about Infosys but the company hasn’t been entirely insulated. Shortly after its Q2 results, there were rumours that it had asked 250-300 people to resign following the discontinuation or scaling down of a BPO project.

However, the top management denied the reports.

Courtesy: Times of India

Infy, TCS still upbeat on hiring

BANGALORE: Though the Indian IT services industry has been cautious in its forecast for growth, two of the country’s top three software exporter
s are not taking the foot off the pedal when it comes to hiring fresh engineering graduates for 2009-10.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country’s largest software company, has made 24,789 technical campus offers for 2009-10, a 13 per cent increase over its intake of 22,000 for the current fiscal. Its closest rival, Infosys Technologies, will be making around 20,000 offers, an 18 per cent increase. However, No 3 Wipro is lowering the number of campus hires to 8,000 from 14,000.

Typically, IT firms offer jobs to engineering students a year in advance, when they have completed the third year of their course.

Though there has been apprehension that a number of IT companies would not honour their hiring commitments to students, there has been no evidence yet of companies going back on their offers. But there have been reports of some firms postponing joining dates.

“Last year, we made over 22,000 technical campus offers for FY09 employees. There is no delay in joining dates and employee additions are on course with our plans to add 30,000-35, 000 people in FY09,” TCS VP and head (global HR) Ajoy Mukherjee said. Infosys has said it will hire 25,000 staff on a gross basis this fiscal.

Adecco India CEO Sudhakar Balakrishnan says it is too early to comment on how campus hiring by the IT industry will be affected because there is no clarity on the impact of the current economic slowdown.

Courtesy: Times of India

Meltdown: Temping firms rejoice

NEW DELHI: Global financial crisis and the consequent knee-jerk reaction in India--retrenchment and layoffs have given temping firms a reason to
smile.

Amidst layoffs and cautious hiring as means of cost cutting, temporary and contract staffing is fast emerging as a lucrative option. The demand for temporary staff across sectors has been steadily growing at 25-30 per cent over the last six months.

India Inc is increasingly realising that contract or temporary staffing can help reduce cost of hiring, absorption, managing people and compliance. Currently, the top five employers in India account for nearly 1.20 lakh temporary employees in the organised sector.

“With the global crisis affecting almost all sectors in India, companies are now more keen on hiring temporary and sub-contracted staff,” says Kelly Services India country general manager Rajiv Mehrotra.

According to the industry estimates, organisations are saving anywhere between 20-40 per cent in their total wage bills by opting for temp staffing. It is also helping companies to identify requisite talent with specific skills as per their own requirements.

Most of the temp hiring is done by sectors which engage in numerous short-duration projects. Sectors like IT, ITeS, BFSI, aviation, hospitality, manufacturing and infrastructure are reported to have increased their contract staff considerably.

These include companies like Microsoft, GE Money and Big Bazaar, among others. Contract staff is being hired across levels in various sectors as it helps companies take on more time based assignments while reducing costs of permanent hiring.

“When it comes to conditions of working for temporary or sub-contracted staff, they differ across sectors, but primarily, legal obligations remain similar for contracted and permanent staff,” says e2e Business Solutions (a HR consultancy firm) director Yeshasvini Ramaswamy. “However, it helps the organisation because they are able to procure requisite and trained people.”

According to the fourth annual temp salaries primer report, compiled by staffing solutions company TeamLease Services, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolko
ta and Delhi pay the best salaries in temping, with Bangalore paying the most in IT and HR, Mumbai in engineering and Delhi in sales.

Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi offer the best wage hikes.

However, the positive aspect of the slowdown is that many organisations in the country have been able to control high attrition rates, which prevailed across sectors like IT/ITes, banking, financial services and retail.

Analysts say less productive employees seem to be getting removed, while those with proven capabilities would be valuable to the employers. Firms will find it easy to narrow down on requisite talent.

“History shows that in turbulent times demand for temporary workforce grows steadily. This is quite contrary to the perm business where only critical positions are hired irrespective of the economic barriers. As the global economy gains traction, we will see employers regain confidence and become more willing to add permanently to their payrolls,” says a Manpower India spokesperson.

Courtesy: Times of India

Hiring, attrition come to a halt

MUMBAI: It’s confirmed now. At the annual national human resources (HR) conference organised by SIES college of management studies (SIESCOMS), H
R managers across industries told ET that recruitment has come to a virtual halt.

Larsen & Toubro’s HR manager Karthik Narendra said, “We are only recruiting in our power business since it is an emerging sector. Recruitment for all other businesses has stopped. We are engaged in more internal reshuffling, to try and promote talent in-house.”

Voltas has also stopped recruitment as a result of the recent global financial meltdown. “The services sector has been hit badly by the recent meltdown. We have stopped recruitment but are engaged in training the talent that we have,” said a senior official at Voltas.

High attrition rates, a problem that was prevalent across sectors is no longer a serious issue for HR managers. With many companies laying off people to cut costs, those who haven’t been giving the pink slip are holding on to their jobs.

Ispat Industries, which was hit badly in the recent crisis, is fine-tuning its operations and is trying to cut costs. Ispat Industries human resources director B R Singh said, “We used to hire trainees every year from campuses which we have stopped. We are instead focusing on driving and motivating our workforce. Earlier, with many new plants starting, retention was an issue, but not any more.”

Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest global healthcare company, hasn’t been hit as much, according to Asia-Pacific regional head for labour and employee relations Vikas Shirodkar. He said that attrition will continue because people still want better salaries.

“We are trying to cut discretionary expenditure like travel and conferences. Unlike others, who won’t be hiring this year, we will continue to hire 20-25 students.

T V Rao, a management consultant said, “Instead of halting recruitment and firing people, companies can look at this as a time to indulge in more corporate social responsibility initiatives. Also, if they lay out the problems to the employees and ask for suggestions it will generate goodwill and loyalty. Employees might also be willing to take a temporary pay cut rather than face losing their job.”

Courtesy: Times of India

Job referrals: New hiring mantra

NEW DELHI: While campus recruitment continues to be the dominant mode of recruitment, IT/ITeS companies have substantially ramped up hiring thro
ugh employee referrals and internal promotions.

This could be the fallout of slow hiring phase that most companies are going through.

The slowdown has also led organisations to take stock of the situation and restructure their working conditions. The hiring plans in the IT/ITeS have been attracting much attention, since they are associated with massive hiring of fresh talent.

“Now, almost 40 per cent hiring is through employee referrals and 80 per cent of our promotions are internal,” says Genpact senior VP and HR head Piyush Mehta. “We are more inclined towards it, as apart from saving time on comprehensive background checks and scanning, it also helps in better camaraderie among employees.”

When a candidate is employed through a referral programme, there is a less probability of the candidate leaving the organisation in a small span of time--a fact well established at Genpact, which has a low attrition rate of 25 per cent. That apart, hiring through referral route also saves time searching, headhunting and calling candidates.

Recruiting people and retaining them is becoming a challenge for the HR departments across sectors. In such a scenario, IT/ITeS industry has chosen this mode to ensure effective hiring. “There has been an increase in hiring through employee referrals by 50 per cent across sectors, and at all levels,” says Expertus (a talent management and recruitment firm) sales and marketing VP A Sudarshan.

“The IT/ITeS sector takes the lead in it. At a time when most companies are looking at cost-optimisation, it is a definite tool of cutting on expenses, but it has an adverse impact on head-hunting and recruiting firms like us.”

There are monetary and intangible benefits for employees in case the referred candidate is finally selected. To ensure a successful referral sy
stem, it is important to suitably award employees who are bringing candidates. This is a strong motivating factor. MindTree Consulting, for instance, has an employee referral scheme ‘Each one bring one’. Infosys BPO is also focusing at maximum recruitment and promotions happening internally.

“It also helps in developing employee relations as the employee’s social needs are met and they have a feeling of belongingness,” says Gurukulonline Learning Solutions CEO Shailesh Mehta. However, headhunting and recruitment firms should not be affected to a major extent as there is always a skill gap or difference between the goals of the organisation and the personal goals of an employee.

“Although, there is rampant internal hiring, especially in the IT/ITeS, there would always be a need for specific talent and cross-border appointments. In such cases, it is necessary to leverage on expert recruitment and hiring firms,” said Mafoi management consultants CEO E Balaji.

Courtesy: Times of India

‘When others fire, you hire'

MUMBAI: As the competition hands out pink slips in a down economy, organisations should take advantage by hiring people. “Really good ones are b
eing laid off during times of recession,” says Robert Miller, co-founder of Miller Heiman and a renowned global sales practitioner.

“It’s the hard truth,” he continues. “No company has ever been able to achieve long-term success on the basis of budget cuts. Every business that succeeds over the long haul knows that it needs to invest in order to grow. As the saying goes, you have to spend money in order to make money.”

Bob, as he is fondly called, was in the city to address corporate chieftains, HR and sales workforce on strategic selling in the global economy at the Indiatimes Strategic Summit.
With over 40 years of experience in sales, consulting, and executive management, Bob and his team have helped clients succeed in the sales arena.

The recognised expert in complex sales management said, “Leaders need to think twice before cutting back during a recession. In particular, the benefits of any layoffs can be deceptively elusive.”

Citing an example, Bob spoke about the early 2000s, when Bain & Company conducted a study of the S&P 500. It found that, among companies that had similar growth rates, those that had small or no layoffs during a downturn tended to substantially outperform those that had larger layoffs.

“The reason is simple: because recessions typically last less than a year, so any short-term wage savings obtained from a large layoff are more than offset by the considerable cost of severance packages, any subsequent declines in productivity, and the expense of rehiring and training employees once the economy rebounds,” says the expert.

Undoubtedly its a grim scenario, when prices rise, factory orders drop, unemployment surges and other economic indicators signal rough times. It is then that corporates need to redouble their efforts. A slow economy is an excellent opportunity to improve the quality and size of not just your sales force, but your key people.

“Double up your efforts to get people on the street and capitalise on the strength of your executive team,” he adds.

In the country for the first time ever, Bob Miller, who has developed and introduced Strategic Selling some 30 years ago, said his passion was to elevate the role of the sales profession.

His mentorship drives innovations in sales performance that are consistent with the vision for the company he started three decades ago.

“There are three stages to a downturn,” Bob said, looking dapper in a dark blue suit teamed with a sky blue shirt. “When there are storm clouds on the horizon, as the first signs of trouble appear; when it is wet and rainy weather, when sales plunge; and when the first rays of sunshine appear, when customers start to increase their buying again.”

Studies have found that at each of those stages, companies tend to do exactly what they shouldn’t. In stage one, executives try to exude confidence that their company will be okay (so as not to frighten employees).

In stage two, they slash costs like crazy, often laying off employees and cutting back on the quality of their products or services. And in stage three, they spend freely, partly to try to make amends to alienated employees and customers. All of that might sound reasonable, but studies have revealed that companies that have been better at weathering the downturns tend to do just the opposite.

In stage one, they start battening down the hatches by letting staff know of their contingency plans. In stage two, they treat employees and customers like partners

Courtesy: Times of India

AIG CEO's salary is $1; no pay hike for top executives

NEW YORK: Troubled insurance giant American International Group In (AIG), for which the US government doubled the rescue package to USD 150
billion earlier this month, on Tuesday said that its CEO would get a salary of only one dollar and there would be no pay hikes for its top executives through 2009.

Separately, leading German reinsurance company Munich Re said that it is interested in buying the life insurance business of AIG in Asia.

Announcing compensation restrictions that go beyond the government's directive as part of its bailout package, AIG said its CEO Edward M Liddy would be given an annual salary of just one dollar in 2008 and 2009.

There would also be no annual bonuses in 2009 and no salary increase through 2009 for AIG's top-seven-officer Leadership Group, AIG said.

Besides, AIG has decided against no salary hike through 2009 for the 50 next-highest executives, in addition to bonus, severance and retention award restrictions.

AIG, for which the US government on November 11 nearly doubled the bailout package to 150 billion dollars from 80 billion dollars previously, is planning to sell some of its assets, including life insurance business in the US, Europe, Latin America and Japan, to recover from a financial mess.

Announcing the pay restrictions for its executives, AIG also said that it is developing a funding structure to ensure that no tax payer dollar is used for annual bonus or future cash performance awards for AIG's "Senior Partners," or the top 60 management people.

Commenting on the move, AIG Chairman and CEO Liddy said, "AIG's senior executives recognize AIG's obligation to tax payers.

"We are extremely grateful for the assistance we have received, and we know we have an obligation to use hat assistance to help AIG recover, contribute to the economy and repay tax payers," Liddy said.

The initial compensation for Liddy, who joined AIG on September 18, will consist entirely of equity grants, showing his confidence in AIG and its team.

While he would not receive an annual bonus in 2008 and 2009, he might be eligible for a special bonus for extraordinary performance payable in 2010Liddy will also not be eligible for severance payments.

Besides, Paula Rosput Reynolds, Vice Chairman and Chief Restructuring Officer, who joined AIG in October, will receive no salary or bonus in 2008. In 2009 and beyond, other than her base salary, any other compensation she receives will be tied directly to the progress of the restructuring efforts.

The other five members of AIG's top-seven-officer Leadership Group will not receive annual bonuses for 2008 or salary increases through 2009.

AIG's Senior Partners will not earn long-term performance awards in 2008 and they will not receive salary hikes in 2009, and their 2008 and 2009 annual bonuses will be limited.

Besides the restriction against any severance payment for the CEO, there will be restrictions on severance payments to members of the top-60 management members.

Courtesy: Times of India

More working hours for techies

BANGALORE: Technology firms are increasing working hours and monitoring the hours worked far more rigorously than ever before in a bid to squeez
e more out of employees in these difficult times.

Some are even going to the extent of checking the recess hour of their employees, to make sure that lunch sessions and coffee breaks do not cut into their per-day productivity.

TCS has recently increased the working hours by an hour a day to 9 hours. From January 1, 2009, Accenture India will do the same, becoming perhaps the first MNC company in India to move to longer working hours.

Wipro employees already put in 9.5 hours (8.30 am to 6pm) a day including a brief lunch break, while it's 9.15 hours in Infosys. But these weren't implemented stringently; until now.

“It's sort of mandatory for us now to put in 9.5 hours of work a day. Our HR seems to be monitoring it very closely these days and even a 15 minute shortage/delay is being noticed,” said a Wipro employee who got a reminder for short-swiping a few days ago.

Infosys Technologies head (HR) T V Mohandas Pai said the company has stringent measures to make sure employees put in the required 9.15 hours every day.

An increase in working hours will directly impact productivity and revenues. For instance, by increasing work hours by an hour a day an employee works an additional 22 hours a month. If an hour of his/her work is billed at $20, the company makes an additional billing of $440 per employee. That means, in rupee terms, a single employee can bring in additional revenues of Rs 22,000 a month for the company.

Such work time extension works well for projects that are on what is called the ‘time & material' model. Around 70 per cent of tech projects are currently under this model, while the rest are fixed price projects where the service providers may resort to pruning the size of teams to bringing cost down.

“Companies, by and large, are targeting a per employee productivity enhancement of 15 per cent,” said a strategist working with an MNC firm. Employees are, understandably, unhappy. “Some people are good and are capable of finishing even the extra work that is given to them in 8 hours. So they are wondering why they should hang around for 9 hours,” said an employee of Accenture India.

Courtesy: Times of India

Citigroup to slash 52,000 jobs to reduce costs by 20 per cent

Courtesy: Times of India

NEW YORK: Vikram Pandit-led financial services giant Citigroup has said that it will cut more than 52,000 jobs in the coming months and reduce expenses by 20 per cent in 2009. ( Watch )

Citi said it intends to reduce the total head count to less than 3,00,000 in the near term as part of the plan. The financial services behemoth had a workforce of 3,52,000 in the third quarter of 2008.

"The head count is expected to be down 20 per cent in the near term from peak levels," the company said today.

Aiming to have less than 3,00,000 people, Citi would have to cut over 52,000 jobs.

The plans to be discussed in the meeting with Citi staff in New York today are posted as a power point presentation on the company's website.

The firm, which has been severely battered by the financial crisis, has incurred huge losses in recent quarters. In the third quarter, Citi had a loss of USD 2.8 billion.

In terms of expenses, the financial services major aims to save USD 50 billion to USD 52 billion in 2009.

"Expenses are expected to be down 20 per cent from peak levels," the firm led by India-born Pandit said.

However, Citi pointed out that underlying business remained strong and that revenues were stable.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2007, the company's head count stood at 3,75,000.

In the first three quarters of this year, the company has reduced its workforce by about 23,000 persons.

Earlier today, television channel CNBC in a report on its website, quoting people close to the company, reported that job cuts might go up to as high as 50,000.

"These people say these cuts will occur in a relatively shorter period of time, such as over the next five or six months," the report noted.

---

Courtesy: The Independent

Citigroup, the ailing US financial giant, shocked the market yesterday by announcing that it would cut 52,000 jobs by the second half of next year.

The planned 15 per cent cut in staff numbers comes on top of 23,000 jobs already axed since the bank's employee numbers peaked at the end of last year and are designed to cut costs by 20 per cent to about $50bn (£33.3bn). The bank warned that London and New York would inevitably bear the brunt of job cuts.

Sir Win Bischoff, the bank's chairman, admitted that, along with other banks, Citi had hired too many people during the long credit-driven boom and predicted a wave of cuts by financial services companies.

"What all of us have done – and perhaps injudiciously – we've added a lot of people over ... this very benign period," said Sir Win. "If there is a reversion to the mean ... those job losses will obviously fall particularly heavily on the financial sector. Certainly they will fall particularly heavily on London and New York."

Citi, which operates in more than 100 countries, employed 352,000 people worldwide at the end of September and has more than 11,000 staff in the UK, including many big-spending investment bankers. Vikram Pandit, the bank's under-pressure chief executive, said yesterday that the total number of employees would shrink to about 300,000 by the end of June.

Mr Pandit announced the cost-cutting measures at a "town hall" meeting for staff designed to set out a clear direction for the financial conglomerate, which has suffered big losses from exposures to debt securities and rising bad debts. Mr Pandit, who took over in December after his predecessor Chuck Prince was forced out, has faced investor attacks for not getting a firm grip on Citi's sprawling global empire.

About half the 52,000 cuts will come from sales of businesses, with 18,000 already in the pipeline from the sale of Citi's German consumer bank and an Indian outsourcing operation. The remaining cuts of about 25,000 are likely to include forced redundancies and to be heavily weighted towards investment banking, particularly businesses such as fixed-income which lie at the heart of the credit crisis.

A Citi spokesman yesterday declined to comment beyond Mr Pandit's presentation to staff.

Market observers expect further big job cuts in financial services, a key driver of the UK and US economies, as a sharp recession and the credit crisis weigh heavily on the once-booming industry. The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts a loss of 62,000 City-related jobs in the UK by the end of next year from 2007's peak of 352,000 with big knock-on effects for other sectors.

Shaun Springer, chief executive of the City recruiter Napier Scott, said: "This is both a reaction to the paucity of profit this year and a proactive assessment of business next year. If there is little business to be had at Citi, that is a pretty fair reflection of top-tier financial institutions in general."

Citi shares shed 19 per cent last week, falling below $10 for the first time since its formation from the merger of Travelers Group and Citicorp in 1998.

Citi was already under fire from investors before the credit crunch started due to out-of-control costs and a series of mishaps across its network. Sir Win signalled yesterday that Citi's bosses would follow Goldman Sachs and UBS by going without bonuses for this year. "Watch this space," he said.

Mr Pandit has faced calls for Citi to be broken up but, though further minor disposals are in the pipeline, he defended the company's "global universal bank model", telling staff that the core strategy remained unchanged. He also highlighted the bank's strong capital position after the US government's $25bn injection, bringing Citi's tier one ratio to 10.4 per cent, just behind JPMorgan and ahead of Bank of America and Wells Fargo on 9.8 per cent each.

The bank's job cuts are already bigger than any other financial institution, according to Bloomberg. UBS, Merrill Lynch and Wachovia have all revealed more than 5,000 job reductions.

The bank has lost about two-thirds of its market value this year after four quarterly losses totalling $20bn. The bank's shares lost a further 6.6 per cent yesterday, closing at $8.89. Citi was last week forced to deny reports that Sir Win, the City grandee, had lost the confidence of some of the bank's directors.

Banks and brokerages worldwide have announced more than 200,000 job cuts since the credit crisis started in August last year. Goldman Sachs is cutting about 3,200 employees, or 10 per cent of its workforce.

Philips to lay off 1,600 workers

THE HAGUE: Dutch electronics giant Philips will cut "about five percent" of its 32,000 strong workforce in the medical division worldwide,
affecting 1,600 workers, a company spokesman told on Saturday.

"In this sector, about five percent of all workers will be laid off. There are a total of 32,000 employees in this division so that means 1,600 jobs will be lost," said Arent Jan Hesselink.

"We want to take all possible measures despite the sluggish economic scenario at present to maintain our profit levels and even improve them if possible," he said.

Most of the medical division employees are based in the United States "but this does not mean that workers will lose jobs where they are most in numbers."

Hesselink said the company wanted to be "as best prepared to face the effects of reduced economic growth or even recession, which many people are predicting will follow soon.

"The next step will be for us to see what eventually happens and when. We then have to negotiate with the people."

Philips head Gerard Kleisterlee said earlier this month: "Given the limited scope of the present economic scenario we have taken certain measures to maintain our profits."

Philips reported net income of 357 million euros in the third quarter of this year, 7.8% higher than the previous quarter, and sales of 6.3bn.

Courtesy: Times of India

Layoffs not to affect India ops: British Telecom

NEW DELHI: The UK-based British Telecom (BT), which announced 10,000 job cuts last week, said, "India will not be affected by any of the job cut
s elsewhere."

"India is a productive market and we are going steady in the region," BT Innovate and Group chief technology officer Matt Bross said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum-India Economic Summit here.

The three-day economic summit, organised jointly by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) started on Sunday amid fears of recession in major economies of the world.

BT has currently employed over 22,000 people in its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations in the country.

Last year, BT had obtained licence for international long distance (ILD) and national long distance (NLD) services from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Bross said the company expected to post $2 billion in revenues by 2011 from the Asia Pacific region, one of the biggest emerging markets which currently contributes about “just a billion.”

Operating in over 170 countries, BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services. Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and Internet products services.

Meanwhile, global IT software provider CA announced it will invest $30 million for an additional facility in Hyderabad, which will house almost 1,000 people.

Regarding the job cuts, CA senior vice-president and general manager (India) Lokesh Jindal said, "We are upbeat about the company's progress and there will not be any job cuts." This investment will be raised from internal accruals, he added.

Companies operating in India are "upbeat" about the economic growth and the country's job market is totally insulated from the effects of the global financial crisis, industrialists said at the summit.

Courtesy: Times of India

GlobalLogic lays off 125 employees

NEW DELHI: In another hit to the IT sector, GlobalLogic, one of the largest outsourced product development companies in India, has laid off abou
t 125 employees.

While 108 employees were asked to leave ‘due to poor grading in the appraisals’ concluded in October, another 17 were told to leave because their ‘skill sets fell obsolete’.

The over $100-million company, which has delivery centres in Noida, Nagpur and Pune, confirmed the layoffs but said the figure is 115.

GlobalLogic CEO Peter Harrison, who flew in from the US this week, called an emergency townhall meeting to announce the drastic steps. “We believe in sharing the numbers (of layoffs) with employees as we don’t want to create any anxiety. A transparent organisation is the most productive one,” said its marketing head Rohit Sharma.

Over the last two years, Global-Logic reduced its headcount to 2,000 from 3,000. The company has also consolidated its verticals into three --B 2B, B2C and telecom--to reduce flab and overlap.

In another interesting twist, one of the co-founders and partner Rajul Garg has resigned from the executive management team as the HR head to pursue entrepreneurial activities ‘outside the company’. He now just has a position on the board. The company is now on a lookout for a new HR head.

Business flow from start ups and emerging product companies has been impacted due to the slowdown. To reduce its discretionary spend, GlobalLogic has done away with paper or plastic tumblers and provided coffee mugs to employees. Single employee pick or drops even at night are now curtailed.

The company has also restructured its management team under which the Indian operations head Mukul Jain will now become the global head. The new India country manager and the existing Ukraine and China heads will report to him.

Courtesy: Times of India