Source: Bloomberg
Circuit City Stores Inc., the second-largest U.S. electronics retailer, will fire 3400 of its highest-paid sales people and hire replacements willing to work for less. Those who were fired can apply for the lower-paying jobs, company spokesman Bill Cimino said today. Sales may be volatile during the first half of this year as the new sales people transition in, the company said today in a statement.

“Firing 3400 of arguably the most successful sales people in the company could prove terrible for morale,” Colin McGranahan, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein & Co., wrote in a note today. “The question remains as to whether Circuit City can rebuild in time for the all-important holiday season.” The company also will eliminate another 130 jobs after hiring IBM to manage some of its computer operations. About 50 Circuit City workers will transfer to IBM. The sales people being fired weren’t given an option of taking a pay cut, spokesman Cimino said. He declined to give the pay rate for fired workers or the expected wages for new hires.

The job cuts will be “a challenge for Circuit City,” said Rick Weinhart, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets Corp. in New York. “These are all fresh faces coming in and certainly they’re less experienced, so I’m guessing it’s not going to be a one- or two-quarter challenge. There’s going to be a learning curve.” Circuit City pays about $10 to $11 an hour, on average, Weinhart estimated. Entry level pay probably is close to $8 for inexperienced workers, he said.

Source: News.com
Symantec this week started sending out pink slips to employees across the company as part of a cost reduction effort. The Cupertino, Calif.-based security and database management software maker in January set a goal to reduce its cost structure by $200 million. As part of that, an unspecified number of employees are now being let go, Melissa Martin, a Symantec spokeswoman, said Thursday.

“We’re reducing (our) head count cost by 5 percent,” Martin said. She declined to say how many employees would be affected by the layoffs. Symantec employs about 17,500 people worldwide. After a disappointing quarter for its enterprise business, Symantec in January said it would cut costs by $200 million to align its expenses with its revenue expectations. To achieve that target, the company said it would trim its workforce, reduce new hires, consolidate facilities and cut spending on contractors, consulting and travel.

The U.S. government has set a new performance goal for itself as can be read in the strategic 5 Year Plan, published by the Department of Labor. Under Performance Goal 2H, titled “Address worker shortages through Foreign Labor Certification Program”, you will find the following little detail;

“H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker.”

Your employer can now bring in a new hire on a H1-B visa, at what the Department of Labor thinks are the prevailing wages for engineers, a whole $40.000 ayear in Silicon Valley (a level 1 engineer, according to Department of Labor statistics), and can then use them to replace and displace “overpriced” U.S. college graduates.