The Week That Was In Layoffs - December 1, 2008

Was chatting with a colleague yesterday who just got a new job starting December 15th. Besides  the requisite best wishes I said something like, "Wow are you lucky to have landed this job given all the layoffs."

To which he responded, " I had 4-5 other offers. I'm not seeing a shortage of work opportunities"

To paraphrase, Rob Reiner's mom in Harry Met Sally, " I'll have what he's having."

While my friend managed to land a new job, many employees were not thinking about getting a new job, they are just hoping to keep the one they have.

A lot of people won't be going back to work next week.

John Cook's Venture Blog is tracking layoffs in the High Tech Sector in Seattle

Marchex: 35
Celebrate Express: Undisclosed
Razorfish: 40 (West Coast)
RealNetworks: 130 (39 local)
Adobe: 600 worldwide (local number undisclosed)
Calypso Medical: 35 (Xconomy)
iFloor: 90 workers. (Seattle Times)
Targeted Genetics: 7 
Iterasi: 4 (Portland Business Journal)

Gawker's Layoff  List

# Viacom laid off 850.
# NBC Universal laid off 500
# Newsday laid off 100.
# People finished laying off 18.
# Simon & Schuster laid off 35.
# Niche Media folded a magazine.
# Tragedy on the homefront.
# Google announced it's cutting its fancy job perks. #
Sotheby's and Christie's announced pending layoffs.
# In the corporate world, there are major layoffs going down at AT&T (12,000 workers), Goldman Sachs, Carlyle Group, Credit Suisse, and tons of other financial firms.
# The big picture: 533,000 US job losses in November.

The backlash to these massive layoffs has begun. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has asked state regulators to block the nearly 400 layoffs in Connecticut

. Blumenthal asked the state Department of Public Utility Control to put 389 layoffs on hold for as it long as it takes for AT&T to improve its “degraded” customer service. The agency is already in the throes of addressing complaints about customer service.
                                                                                   TheDay.com

IAC Chief Executive Barry Diller, speaking at the Reuters Media Summit told profitable businesses to layoff the layoffs.

“The idea of a company that’s earning money, not losing money, that’s not, let’s say ‘industrially endangered,’ to have just cutbacks so they can earn another $12 million or $20 million or $40 million in a year where no one’s counting is really a horrible act when you think about it on every level. First of all, it’s certainly not necessary. It’s doing it at the worst time. It’s throwing people out to a larger, what is inevitably a larger unemployment heap for frankly no good reason.”
                                                                                                               Reuters

Update: List of High Tech Layoffs in Oregon
Next Update:  Added A  Widget which contains all the latest Layoff news. How depressing is that? You can find it right under the RSS /subscription button by my picture.