Team-BHP - Effect of Recession on our Jobs

its almost dot com bust revisited..have been speaking to many of my friends in US..unlike in 2001 when u were fired on a H1 B - u had to come back in a couple of weeks...most of the desis now have EADs - although many have been laid off - they can hang in there..massive salary undercutting is underway in US - people are moving from East Coast to West Coast with 25-30 % salary cuts !!

Good for us techies here - atleast they are not coming back in hoardes to India - like in 2001 - unless we would see massive correction in salaries here in India as well - but we never know !!

Its really sad to see such things happening around. As per Industry experts, this recession is the worst since last 45 years.

IT Industry will grow at 5% in 09-10. Even in 2000-01, IT Industry grew at 20%.

We need to brace ourselves for a long stint in this situation. Yesterday, Sun Micro Systems Laid Off 55 Employees from its Bangalore R&D Centre as reported in local Newspapers.

In my organisation, people are being asked to quit on silly reasons.

Very Strange and wonder what is in store for us.

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Originally Posted by Blue Thunder (Post 1142031)

unbelievable :eek:.

I thought this was one product-based IT company that wouldn't be affected by the vagaries of the economy. Guess the worst of this market slump is yet to come.

Is MS using this economy downturn to layoff people? At the level of profits they make they can sustain more than anybody else. Ofcourse I agree profit comes first to any corporation

Yes, there are many small companies that have shut shop in the US. Just that we hear very little about them.

There are job cuts happening in many companies in Bangalore. Employees in India operations of US companies aren't very safe anymore. There have been job cuts in many companies - just that they are not given much publicity.

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Originally Posted by CBlazer (Post 1143473)

This looks to be true atleast in my case. I was shown the door today and I worked for the top semiconductor US mnc

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Originally Posted by ece2k2 (Post 1143496)

This looks to be true atleast in my case. I was shown the door today and I worked for the top semiconductor US mnc

Sad to hear that. What are the prospects of getting a job? In my company too few people who were into chip design are out of project and the mamnagement is trying to find a project for them. R&D activities take the first hit as they are relatively not that 'essential' in the short run.

Oh god!! ece; it is going to be very hard. No advance notice? Nothing to cushion the shock?

Guys, there is one thing we should remember - in India, we have zero social security. Out of job means out of monthly income; but in West, (at least most developed nations) it does not mean out of your home and food. You get a monthly dole (look at Sam's Dilwale braut .... thread - Jenny has to go through some red tape after resigning her job to explain why she does not want the social security payments) to cover your residence and food.

Not in India.

You have income, you paid tax. You are out of income, you get the raw end of the stick.

@BSD, social security is not magic. we pay for the social security, and based on that we get a kind of life insurance which is paid to our dependents (not mine personally, because we are temp workers in this country). it's variable, based on one's contribution to social security.

the unemployment benefit is the same for all i suppose.

but that's not the point. the point is, it's not magic. last time i heard, social security administration was worried it could not sustain the recession itself for a long time. the money is going out faster that ever expected.

EDIT: The concept of social security is that the younger generations earns and pays for the older, unusable generation. Now, the younger generation has lost most of it's earning power to offshore facilities in Asia. not to mention a careless, principle-less bringing up. how long will it really work?

EDIT II - Not sure if you have read. Pension funds and such had heavily invested in risky instruments in last few years feeling left out of the bullish run and under pressure to perform. Many of the pension funds (sometimes managed at city or even organization level) have simply vanished, lifetime savings of people gone. I won't be surprised if social security also has lost money in this fiasco. remember, the way the risky mortgages were packaged and re-packeged, you might not even know that your own bank account is invested in the same.

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Originally Posted by Guna (Post 1143603)

thatz okay i think as I was mentally prepared for such a blow. am still to explore the job opportunities, but it seems to be very remote as I see each n every chip design company is under a heavy layoff mood.

there has been no new projects coming in for the last one year. the only thing that happened was that a prospective project got scrapped a few months back. and i know that I am not the first person to get this treatment, but we seem to be a bunch of people hit by this scenario - non-disclosed layoffs

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Originally Posted by ece2k2 (Post 1143887)

Glad to know you are keeping your chin up in this situation :thumbs up
Easier said than done, but things will definitely get better someday, life is not constant.
I have started looking for another job myself, I have given myself till March. The more I try the closer I get!!

Although the US/European lay-off are making headlines, are transparent about their plans, while the Indian companies are resorting to removing the workforce under one pretext or another silently. The popular being sub-cons(agency), then non-performers, followed by the disciplinary category. In TechM around 1000+ resource are removed under first two categories, while likes of Satyam indulged in more insulting later category.

This I think is insulting way to treat the so far 'pampered' boys of IT.

See the Indian companies 'karma' -

India: Mass IT Layoffs in December 2008 LayoffBlog.com

Looks like more heads gonna roll to pay for the top mgmt greed and pressure to maintain profitability for public companies...:Frustrati

Quote:

Originally Posted by ece2k2 (Post 1143496)

This looks to be true atleast in my case. I was shown the door today and I worked for the top semiconductor US mnc

Hope you got a decent severance package.

BTW, I have some difficulty in guessing which company you are talking about, as it is difficult to guess which is "the" top semi MNC.