Layoffs Announced

Well, it appears many of us who suspected offshoring our work to places like Malaysia would result in job losses here Stateside were correct. A special announcement from Supergeek was just broadcast company wide. Layoffs are inevitable he says, due to a global slowdown in the technology sector. Yeah, right. Now that the Malay have duplicated many of our instrument lines at a manufacturing site in Penang and finally come up to speed most of our work was shifted to them. Originally we were told this would be a co-manufacturing scenario where we would split the work on incoming orders with Malaysia. Instead this arrangement has resulted in our overseas operations laying claim to the overwhelming bulk of the work.

Everyone here is in total shock. Some employees are almost panic stricken or on the verge of a nervous breakdown. When our former CEO, Turtlehead announced the company split I saw our morale hit a new low. This seems even worse. The atmosphere is subdued and so quiet right now all I can hear across the building is the hum of cooling fans in test racks. The thing that's so messed up about this is in our company's 60 year history layoffs have always been successfully avoided. Sure there have been a few bad periods of time where things on the business front got rough, but clever managers always figured a way out.

Currently in this county we have four manufacturing plants employing 6,000 people. Supergeek didn't mention a timetable for when layoffs will begin or how many employees will be affected. This is going to be an interesting ride...