More Layoffs to Come

In the past several months, many companies believed to be stable have had massive layoffs which has contributed to the 10.3 million Americans who are currently unemployed. Some of the companies that had major layoffs or will have layoffs by the end of 2008 year or early 2009 are:

Citigroup (53,000)
Bank of America (35,000)
GM (32,000)
HP (24,500 over next 3 years)
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (16,800)
Rio Tinto (14,000)
AT &T (12,000)
Las Vegas Sands Casino (11,000)
BT Group (10,000)
Deutsche Post AG (DHL) (9,500)
Dell (9,000)
Sony Music (8,000)
Circuit City (7,300) and will close 155 stores
Merck (7,200)
American Express (7,000)
Dow Chemical (5,000)
Sun Microsystems (5,000-6,000)
Credit Suisse (5,300)
Whirlpool (5,000)
Sprint (4,000)
National City Corp (4,000)
Pepsi (3,300)
Goldman Sachs (3,260)
Motorola (3,000)
Xerox (3,000)
Dupont (2,500)
Ford (2,260)
Office Depot (2,200) and will close 112 stores
Nortel (2,100)
Chrysler (1,825)
3M (1,800)
Siemens (1,800)
eBay (1,600)
Yahoo (1,500)
Fidelity (1,300)
GlaxoSmithKline (1,000)
Starbucks (1,000) and will close 600 stores
Market Watch (850)
Viacom (850)
Texas Instruments (650)
Adobe (600)
Nokia (600)
Level 3 (450)
Palm (200+)
Legg Mason (200)
Cisco (129)
Yum Brands (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell), (unknown)
Morgan Stanley (10% of workforce)
Mattel (Fisher Price, Barbie, HotWheels) (3% of workforce)
EA Video Games (6% of workforce)

This list equals a total of 322,724 jobs that will be lost and an increase in the number of Americans who will be unemployed.

Now is the time to show that you are an asset to your company. Take training courses or go back to school to learn a new skill. Every American worker should have at least 2 skills that can be used to get a job. Also, get a part-time job if possible and use the money to pay down debt or create an emergency savings account to cover monthly bills and household expenses for at least 6 months.

If you currently do business with a company that is closing or downsizing consider how this will affect customer service: such as wait time to reach a customer service representative, proper processing of your payments, technical assistance, and other services. Also, ask the company questions on how they will ensure that their existing customers receive exceptional customer service. If you are a good customer negotiate with them for cheaper rates or discounts.