These 12 Companies Have Laid Off Workers in 2018
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is not only the second largest wireless carriers in the U.S., but among the top pay-TV providers as well. The communications giant was one of the first companies to announce one-time employee bonuses tied to recently enacted tax legislation, saying the move would "create good-paying jobs." What makes this particularly ironic is that soon after, the company began notifying an estimated 4,000 employees that they would be laid off.
The telecom giant is being sued by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a union that represents some of the employees. In a court filing, the group said that AT&T is "instituting an unprecedented massive layoff of employees … while at the same time massively subcontracting work that the employees are trained and qualified to perform."
An unpleasant reality
Layoffs are a fact of life for those in the workforce, though that will likely be small comfort to those getting a pink slip. Gone are the days when a worker could count on having the same employer through good times and bad.
The biggest takeaway from this list is that there are many reasons that a company might be laying off staff. It could be a victim of technological advances, an outdated business model, changing consumer behaviors, or a paradigm shift in the marketplace. These actions could also be temporary measures, realignment, or simply the result of overzealous hiring.
In the words of the song, "it's an ever-changing world in which we live in."
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary,
is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Danny Venaowns
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We see the headline that states unemployment is at the lowest rate in history, yet we seem to miss the news that many organizations are laying off large numbers of employees. This is a real time example of the hazards that result from poor or no workforce planning. Pick one of the companies mentioned in the slide show and do a bit more research on the situation surrounding the layoff plan and then answer your discussion question for this week.
AT&T layoff reasons was a combination of a number of situations. While the company failed to properly execute its workforce planning and ended up hiring huge numbers of staff in the recent years, the technological advances in the industry meant that the human resources were less needed to perform the work which the machine could do more efficiently and accurately. Moreover, due to the rising demands of the customers from the company in providing cheaper services, the company had to cut back its production costs. All of this ultimately led to the layoffs by the company. Efficient workforce planning could have definitely avoided this situation. Had the company relied on accurate data for sales forecast, changes in costumers tastes and preferences and the advances in new technologies, it could have avoided hiring the additional workforce and wouldn't have had to lay off its employees in such a haphazard manner to reduce the cost of production.
Effective workforce planning can help in creating a stable workforce and a healthy work environment for the employees. The Human Resouce Planning Process depends on a number of factors and is usually derived after analyzing the future trends for the industry, the comfortable workforce needed to earn maximum profits without increasing the cost of production and hiring the talent which would provide optimum stability to the workforce in the future. The companies following a proper HRP process will not indulge in unnecessary hiring of the large workforce or wouldn't have to participate in layoffs as it has the optimum workforce needed to derive maximum productivity, output, and profits which would be helpful to the company in the long run and will help it in enjoying long-lasting success.
These 12 Companies Have Laid Off Workers in 2018 AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is not only the second l...
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