The hammer fell today at RIM as the company tries to bring costs in line with its falling sales.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]The company said on Monday that it would eliminate 2,000 jobs from its workforce. That equates to just about 10 percent of its workers.
Calling the cuts a “cost optimization program,” RIM said the job losses are “focused on eliminating redundancies and reallocating resources to focus on areas that offer the highest growth opportunities and alignment with RIM’s strategic objectives.”
Employees in North America and a number of other countries will be notified this week, according to RIM.
The company said the financial impact of the layoffs would be revealed during the fiscal second quarter report on September 15, 2011.
A company with 2 CEOs reduces redundancies without fixing that. OK.
Especially in fast growing markets lay-offs are a necessary means of cost reduction when certain processes of the internal supply chain have been optimised or need to be optimised.
Unfortunately —in non-producing companies— it is also often a sign of internal problems, when the company cannot reallocate and put to use their human resources. Cutting cost by cutting jobs often only leads to diminished productivity. The short term financial advantages are only seldom worth the problems this causes long term.
There are two positions I would’ve eliminated before letting 2000 workers go…
I’m guessing the layoffs include at least one RIM cheerleader and his sockpuppets who used to post comments here.
“Employees in North America and a number of other countries will be notified this week, according to RIM.”
Can you imagine what morale must be like since the layoffs were announced? Not only did the company they work for release a product that should never have seen the light of day, but the CEOs are crowing about how great it is while deciding which workers are going to get the axe.
When does the press start referring to RIM as troubled, ailing, and/or beleaguered?