What did these 5K people do. Obviously they had no value so why were they employed to begin with? If RIMM can just dump them like ballast in one day. Large corporations must be full of bloat and excess employees. I wonder what % of employees are a wash and could be layed off. I bet like 20-30% of employees in companies are dead weight. So much for Private industry being so efficient they are just as bad as government entities it seems.
Yes, most of them are. Big corps are every bit as inefficient and wasteful as big government. It's part of the human condition.
Probably a lot of marketing, sales, tech support, that kind of thing. Infrastructure to support a much larger customer base than what they have.
your hypothesis is dubious at best. e.g. pensions are not comparable. that being said managers and share holders do not have the same interests. e.g. general motors management was soft on uaw and aimed for short term profits in order to keep their jobs.
RIMM's situation is due to competition from the iPhone and Android. They're laying people off because, unfortunately for both the employees and management, they must. In light of that, it seems unfair to describe them as "bloat".
This happens all the time. A crappy global (or local) economy will shake out the weak hands. RIMM is a weak hand. AAPL on the other hand is strong. 10 years from now, we may be reading about how AAPL is laying off 20k.
happens over and over, look at kodak. I remember just a decade ago they were the pinnacle of photography and dominated the market with their 35mm films and printing. Then they just watched as the digital took over, didnt even try to fight... same with rimm.
I have to agree with large corporations being full of bloat and excess employees. I hear stories all the time about the actual work load some of the employees who get paid 75-100k a year do. I would say in a given 8 hour day, the average corporate worker probably does about 3-4 hours of work, and most complain that they want more. You know how many hours a day people are texting or using their computer to stream movies and or jump on and off social networking sites. I would say you could probably cut about 25% of the work force in these large corporations and they would still do well. Another thing I laugh at is the "title" some people get at these corporate positions, its somewhat of a joke if you really think about it.
I agree, no company ever stays on top forever and anyone who thinks that is foolish, Rimm was a leader in the handset market just 5 years ago, now look at them today, I wouldnt doubt someone buys them out. As for apple many would disagree with what you said, but I think its true, you could be reading the same exact headlines in years to come from apple.