AOL to fire 1200 people, I heard they're hiring in India

[Hacp]

AOL announced in November that it planned to cut its work force by about one-third, cutting up to 2,500 positions. On Monday, AOL said that about 1,100 employees accepted a buyout offer, and that this week it would begin laying off an 1,200 more workers.

After the cuts, AOL will have about 4,700 employees, or less than one-quarter than it employed at its peak in 2004, when it had some 20,000 workers. Last month, AOL was spun off as an independent company by Time Warner, finally unraveling one of the most disastrous mergers in American corporate history. Many of the principals in that merger reflected on the deal in a lengthy article published Monday in The New York Times.

AOL said it began notifying affected employees in the United States on Monday and that the majority of employees would be laid off by Wednesday. The timing of the layoffs will vary in other countries that are subject to different labor laws, the company said. Trish Primrose, an AOL spokeswoman, declined to say how many of the affected employees were in the United States.

The layoffs cap a major cost-cutting effort, internally known as Project Everest, that was put in place by Tim Armstrong, the former Google sales executive who became chief executive of AOL last year. Mr. Armstrong has said he would pare back AOL’s business and focus the company more narrowly on a few areas including content, online advertising and communications.

“Project Everest is the completion of phase one of AOL’s turnaround,” Ms. Primrose said in an e-mail message.

So thats 1200 more software guys losing their jobs, probably a majority residing in the US. And Bill Gates still wants more H1bs.. why? We have a shitload of skilled, talented, and unemployed coders living right here in the US. Send those H1Bs back and have US companies hire US workers!

 

[rudder]

I want to know how AOL is still in business. I guess there are tons of people with broadband who will pay the $9 for AOL content. I know there is a dial up customer base... but netzero, juno, and a host of local $5 month places should have killed AOL long ago.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

AOL is still around? I could use some more coasters...maybe they'll send me some AOL dial-up discs?

 

[drebo]

So thats 1200 more software guys losing their jobs, probably a majority residing in the US. And Bill Gates still wants more H1bs.. why? We have a shitload of skilled, talented, and unemployed coders living right here in the US. Send those H1Bs back and have US companies hire US workers!

Americans have this bloated sense of self-worth and entitlement. Foreign workers generally don't. If it's cheaper to send the jobs to India and be guaranteed the same quality (which is not always the case, let me tell you), then that's what companies are going to do.

This ties in to the whole minimum wage discussion in the other thread: if the bottom rung has to get paid $8.25/hr (minimum wage in California), then the supervisor above him is going to want at least $16/hr, and it just goes up exponentially from there. It's not based on skill or actual worth of the employee...it's based on what the gubb'ment says. As such, it's very difficunt to compete with foreign workers.

 

[Hacp]

Americans have this bloated sense of self-worth and entitlement. Foreign workers generally don't. If it's cheaper to send the jobs to India and be guaranteed the same quality (which is not always the case, let me tell you), then that's what companies are going to do.

This ties in to the whole minimum wage discussion in the other thread: if the bottom rung has to get paid $8.25/hr (minimum wage in California), then the supervisor above him is going to want at least $16/hr, and it just goes up exponentially from there. It's not based on skill or actual worth of the employee...it's based on what the gubb'ment says. As such, it's very difficunt to compete with foreign workers.

Yes, standard of living def needs to go down in America and we def need to get rid of unions to compete in a global economy, but the big problem I have is the fact that jobs are leaving the US and probably never coming back. AOL probably didn't even attempt to offer the workers a much lower wage to keep their jobs.

 

[Red Dawn]

Yes, standard of living def needs to go down in America and we def need to get rid of unions to compete in a global economy, but the big problem I have is the fact that jobs are leaving the US and probably never coming back. AOL probably didn't even attempt to offer the workers a much lower wage to keep their jobs.

 

[StageLeft]

I also have no idea how aol is still going.

 

[drebo]

I also have no idea how aol is still going.

They changed from a service provider into a content provider. They no longer provide dialup internet service themselves (yes, you can buy AOL dialup, but it's actually sold through a company called GlobalPOPs).

AOL is now a media and content gateway. Additionally, they rely on revenue from the older generation that still believe that AOL is the internet and so subscribe to it even though they don't need to.

 

[Jaskalas]

Yes, standard of living def needs to go down in America and we def need to get rid of unions to compete in a global economy

<3 Free trade?

 

[Genx87]

So thats 1200 more software guys losing their jobs, probably a majority residing in the US. And Bill Gates still wants more H1bs.. why? We have a shitload of skilled, talented, and unemployed coders living right here in the US. Send those H1Bs back and have US companies hire US workers!

No, we really dont contrary to what protectionist xenophobes spew.

AOL said it began notifying affected employees in the United States on Monday and that the majority of employees would be laid off by Wednesday. The timing of the layoffs will vary in other countries that are subject to different labor laws, the company said. Trish Primrose, an AOL spokeswoman, declined to say how many of the affected employees were in the United States.

So this affects not only people within the United States but also people working for AOL in other countries. And the article doesnt mention a thing about AOL rehiring these people in India not what type of jobs were cut. Yet you try to spin it like these were 1200 software devs that were replaced by workers in India?

 

[JS80]

So thats 1200 more software guys losing their jobs, probably a majority residing in the US. And Bill Gates still wants more H1bs.. why? We have a shitload of skilled, talented, and unemployed coders living right here in the US. Send those H1Bs back and have US companies hire US workers!

You just don't get it. We are short on TALENTED workers. I have 10 requisitions open for software engineers which are slow to get filled even though we must have interviewed over 100 people and I don't even know how many resumes get screened out. And we STILL hired 4 H1B's, of which two of them left for more money (we pay H1B's the same salary AND incur the cost of their sponsorship)!

 

[Hacp]

No, we really dont contrary to what protectionist xenophobes spew.



So this affects not only people within the United States but also people working for AOL in other countries. And the article doesnt mention a thing about AOL rehiring these people in India not what type of jobs were cut. Yet you try to spin it like these were 1200 software devs that were replaced by workers in India?

They are in fact expanding in India. I never said they were rehiring all the 1200 workers in India. They are also closing shop in spain and some other european country.

 

[Hacp]

You just don't get it. We are short on TALENTED workers. I have 10 requisitions open for software engineers which are slow to get filled even though we must have interviewed over 100 people and I don't even know how many resumes get screened out. And we STILL hired 4 H1B's, of which two of them left for more money (we pay H1B's the same salary AND incur the cost of their sponsorship)!

It discourages people from entering CS/tech jobs because of the low salaries compared to other areas. This means more people in India get into computers and less in the US, furthering the brain drain we are slowly experiencing(already 50%+ of our PHD path graduate students in the sciences are foreigners).

Yes, I do support an overall lowering of salaries in the US because it will subsequently make things cheaper but if you have one field bear the burden, no one will want to enter that field and we won't have any programmers in the future.

 

[rudder]

They changed from a service provider into a content provider. They no longer provide dialup internet service themselves (yes, you can buy AOL dialup, but it's actually sold through a company called GlobalPOPs).

AOL is now a media and content gateway. Additionally, they rely on revenue from the older generation that still believe that AOL is the internet and so subscribe to it even though they don't need to.

ahhh, kind of like AT&T make tons of money from people leasing land line phones for $4 a month.

 

[Robor]

They changed from a service provider into a content provider. They no longer provide dialup internet service themselves (yes, you can buy AOL dialup, but it's actually sold through a company called GlobalPOPs).

AOL is now a media and content gateway. Additionally, they rely on revenue from the older generation that still believe that AOL is the internet and so subscribe to it even though they don't need to.

This is so true. I can't tell you how many people I've had to explain this to.

 

[Robor]

It discourages people from entering CS/tech jobs because of the low salaries compared to other areas. This means more people in India get into computers and less in the US, furthering the brain drain we are slowly experiencing(already 50%+ of our PHD path graduate students in the sciences are foreigners).

Yes, I do support an overall lowering of salaries in the US because it will subsequently make things cheaper but if you have one field bear the burden, no one will want to enter that field and we won't have any programmers in the future.

Huh? What good are cheaper things when the salary I rely on to buy them is lower?

 

[nageov3t]

I also have no idea how aol is still going.

my 58 year-old mom loves it. not sure she'd know how to use the internet without AOL.

 

[marincounty]

Steve Case is worth $1 billion according to Forbes.
Case owns nearly half of Hawaii-based Maui Land and Pineapple Co. He also controls tens of thousands of acres of land in Hawaii. But he earned it right?

 

[JS80]

It discourages people from entering CS/tech jobs because of the low salaries compared to other areas. This means more people in India get into computers and less in the US, furthering the brain drain we are slowly experiencing(already 50%+ of our PHD path graduate students in the sciences are foreigners).

Yes, I do support an overall lowering of salaries in the US because it will subsequently make things cheaper but if you have one field bear the burden, no one will want to enter that field and we won't have any programmers in the future.

How much do you think we were paying our H1B software engineers straight out of college?

 

[Thump553]

The quoted article does NOT say that AOL is hiring in India, it says that they are shedding another 1200 employees in an attempt to make this failing business vaible again.

AOL today is like the ice delivery firm after widespread adoption of refrigerators.

OP's premise fails. This has absolutely nothing to do with H1Bs.

 

[Genx87]

It discourages people from entering CS/tech jobs because of the low salaries compared to other areas. This means more people in India get into computers and less in the US, furthering the brain drain we are slowly experiencing(already 50%+ of our PHD path graduate students in the sciences are foreigners).

Yes, I do support an overall lowering of salaries in the US because it will subsequently make things cheaper but if you have one field bear the burden, no one will want to enter that field and we won't have any programmers in the future.

It really depends what you are doing in the Information Technology world. If you are a run of the mill desktop support player you can bet the money isnt there. But there is plenty of other oppotunities for nice paying jobs. I have a couple of buddies pulling in 6 figures as programmers in the Minneapolis area. Even network admins can see 70+\year around here which isnt bad.

 

[Patranus]

And Bill Gates still wants more H1bs.. why? We have a shitload of skilled, talented, and unemployed coders living right here in the US. Send those H1Bs back and have US companies hire US workers!

Um. People from other countries actually work instead of spending their day surfing the internet. People from other countries usually do a better and are a lot more respectful to their employer.

 

[Lanyap]

my 58 year-old mom loves it. not sure she'd know how to use the internet without AOL.

Not to be sexist, but it's been my experience that middle aged and older women love AOL and will not give it up. I'm not sure why, maybe it takes the place of sex. I moved one of my older neighbors from an old Windows PC to a MAC and converted her from AOL dialup to AOL broadband. She couldn't stand to be without her AOL, LOL.

 

[exar333]

Um. People from other countries actually work instead of spending their day surfing the internet. People from other countries usually do a better and are a lot more respectful to their employer.

Weird. It's the complete opposite where I work. Patronus, are you referring to your own work ethic (or lack thereof)?

 

[Strk]

Weird. It's the complete opposite where I work. Patronus, are you referring to your own work ethic (or lack thereof)?

My guess is he is talking about the guys who post here from work bitching about other people's work ethic.