Part 1 of this two-part series looked at the reasons companies turn to outsourcing and offshoring. Part 2 will examine the laws governing the disclosure of layoffs and the state of the outsourcing market.
As the ongoing global economic crisis continues to impact the technology sector, many employees who once thought their jobs were secure are being given pink slips and shown the door.
Giants like Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) have cut tens of thousands of jobs in just the first quarter of 2009, according to a recent report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a Chicago-based outplacement firm.
That is the highest number of quarterly layoffs recorded since the days of the Internet bust in 2002. The number of employee cuts rose 45 percent in 2008, according to the firm. The new numbers represent a 27 percent increase in cuts over the fourth quarter of 2008. Compared to the same period one year ago, job cuts have multiplied fivefold. More than 67,100 jobs were slashed by the end of February.
