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