Regardless of the company...

Why is it horrific and untenable when a company reorients themselves in the face of a slowing economy by identifying and eliminating cost centers that are not actively or likely to generate a profit in the near term, while, in the same circumstances, an individual who analyzes their finances and identifies and eliminates expenses that are not necessary is considered prudent and responsible.

Hmmm... Oh yeah, its ok to take care of our own business when it benefits us, but beware anyone else who applies the same principles to their business! Especially if the results do not directly benefit us! LOL!

As tragic as it may be, companies are not welfare agencies. And one might instead question the legitimacy of their hiring folks who are not absolutely necessary to begin with. But its strange that no one ever seems to take that approach as they lament the elimination of aspects superfluous to the most efficient running of a business.

But one wonders, Angela, why you don't share this same insight with regards to companies such as NPR who care so much about their employees as opposed to those other uncaring companies... LOL!

I worked for a company called Genuity Solution
based in Woburn, MA . Verizon had the option
to buy back the company after a few years,
but decided not to. So, the stocks tanked and
was purchased by Level(3) at a cheap price.

Bottom line, Level(3) made alot of promises
and at the end. They canned the employees
and move to Atlanta Georgia.

I feel bad about people loosing their jobs
these days, but the management of Level(3)
was bad when I worked for Level(3) ..

I can only imagine how bad it got after moving
to Atlanta ...

I feel bad for the rest of the employees ...

I get so bummed when I hear about layoffs like this. I feel bad for the families.

I hope that "Public Works / Infrastructure" jobs plan that Obama is talking about will help pull displaced workers back up into the job market and get this economy turned around.

Infrastructure is key to interstate commerce, for example, and the better our infrastructure, the more efficiently goods and services can be delivered.

If you are pretty much going to shuffle money around (the circle of cash) then improving core elements of your own country along the way would be a nice little benefit. :)

I do also wish that instead of importing so many jobs (say programmers from India just as an example), companies would try to keep jobs local as much as they can, especially during bad times like these.

I'm not talking about immigration - just about importing jobs.

Anyway, I am hoping things will turn around. For all of us.

Agreed re the families, DudeBoyz -- and I keep thinking that if these are the cuts companies are willing to announce to the public *before* the holidays, January is going to be horrendous. (And trust me, the reports don't like writing up this stuff any more than readers like reading it. Nightmares it gives us.)

And I agree too that the prospect of the next administration putting long-overdue funds into infrastructure is thrilling stuff. Concrete and steel, after all, don't care about your politics or the popularity of your tax plans; they deteriorate at a fairly well-understood rate regardless.

Our interstate highway system, for instance, is a beautiful achievement of engineering -- made us the country we are today, truly -- but no road lasts forever, and we've been exceedingly slack about doing the things that have to be done to keep it together. Are we in time? Can we grow the infrastructure (a world-class or at least not pitifully underfunded intercity train system, for instance)? And how can high tech and high-tech folk be of assistance?

Exciting times, and if we do this right we may come out of all this crisis even better than we were before. I do know this in any case: Government can't do it alone (and probably shouldn't). We need public *and* private leadership. And all these job cutters, these incompetent money managers, these companies that couldn't figure out how to balance short-term stockholder desires with the long-term interests of their businesses, sure as heck don't strike me as the necessary caliber of leadership material.

Strange days indeed.

While most of your statements are true, the work should be in the hands of contractors and not government employees. Growing government for projects like this would be a horrible idea.

Disagree strongly, but this isn't the place to do the libertarian bunnyhop or explain what it is that governments do. Moving along.

Cute sloganeering reminiscent of sjc001.

But can you cite just ONE example of a real world implementation of your oh-so-lamentable "libertarian bunnyhop".

It certainly wasn't present in any of Bush's big government social conservatism, and it certainly isn't present in the openly prolaimed and advocated socialist visions of many of the 'change' brigade where we have simply retread former Gore and Clinton staffers. Oh yeah, and let's not forget forward thinking Tom Daischle as we look backwards to go forward!

If you want to address real issues and real policies rather than things only imagined from such a partisan position, please do!

But try to avoid such things as Hillary's hallucinations lest you fall into her bouts of imagining the extreme right wing conspiracy when she is not busy communing with Eleanor Roosevelt...not to mention the recently released internal documents from Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Task Force, which was organized during the Clinton years and which have been all but ignored by the network press.... (posted by Judicual Watch and also cited at length by Ed Morrissey)

The documents reveal that the Democratic National Committee was to be used as a domestic espionage unit against Clinton opponents – and that the liberal media was to be used to discredit any opposition to Hillary’s plans for socialized medicine.

Quoting from one health care task force memo (May 26, 1993) that came from Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-VA). In it, Rockefeller suggests that Hillary use “opposition research” to attack those who were excluded by the Clinton Administration from task force deliberations and to “expose the lifestyles, tactics and motives of lobbyists” in order to deflect criticism from Hillary’s work.

Change... hmmm...It sure sounds famiiar...

And then go read Bias by Bernard Goldberg - one of the members of the vast right wing conspira...oops, I mean the liberal press.

Wanna buy a Senate seat - I mean, directly, without the hassle of having to deal with a proxy politician???

Change indeed! The more it changes.....

Yup, the country is on the verge of a libertarian takeover! LOL! After all, you can't have free people making decisions regarding their own lives by themselves! After all, who would tell them what is in their own best interests!?

Unfortunately, the only time that happens is when the social engineering libs (be they left or social right - you know, the self-righteous who are so quick to use the rule of law to tell/coerce OTHERS how to live...) get caught doing something and they then desparately run to hide behind the label as a license to excuse their personal behavior from public scrutiny!

LOL!

How soon they forget!

But if we just pass ANOTHER law forbiding what we already have laws forbidding, it will be sure to show them how really serious we are!

And don't dare ask where the folks in Guantanemo will be released - aside from the FEW that will be accepted by other countries and our laws refusing their return to lands where their welfare might be at risk... Maybe they will move in next to you...Hell, even The Economist is lamenting this absurd dilemma!

Hop along little bunny...unfortunately, you lament what was never was and what most likely will never be (libertarianism), as you support what has been and what will be again (right and left wing social engineering) as you posture under the slogan of "change" - without any clear dilineation of exactly from what we are leaving nor to where we are going.

But one things we are sure of - it wasn't anything remotely resembling libertarian philosophy - as all we have now is the tug of war between partisan groups of social engineers who each want want to impose their brand of liberalism on all of us - rather than simply presenting a compelling case foreach of their positions and trusting that people can freely make up their own minds.

But then, after all - neither the liberal left nor the social right pretends to think that the people are smart enough or capable of doing that! They need to be assisted - coerced by the rule of law. And as such, both are an anethema to things libertarian.

Sorry - no change here...

wouldn't it be more cost effective to eliminate the job position of one executive?

then the company could keep 450 employees paid for the next ten years.

By that same note, if a sub- or replacement- executive makes a bad decision, the entire company could fail and not only are people out of jobs, shareholders are out of investment.

I love it how people weren't praising MSFT and GOOG execs when while were hiring tens of thousands of people for new jobs.

that's true.

further, greedy executives get their own compensation guaranteed and upfront.

so regardless how the company performs the executive(s) get their share before anyone else.

on the other hand greedy executives will also leverage the welfare of the employees and their families "only" to further their own financial gain up to the very last minute and dollar.