A poor job (cut)

When the going gets tough, the tough let their people go. As the global layoffs season returned, Yahoo! joined the bandwagon recently, firing 1500 of its employees in a cost-cutting move.

Of these, 30-40 (depending on which news report you would believe) were laid off from its India office in Bangalore. Although an infinitesimal number for a country of 1.1 billion, the irony was striking. Most of these people worked for its Yahoo!HotJobs division, helping other people find jobs.

To add insult to injury, Jerry Yang, the company's CEO and Chief Yahoo (as he calls himself), sent a parting e-mail--explaining why and how these layoffs would help the company--without bothering to use any capitalisation!(You can read his note here)

The phenomenon is getting nauseatingly familiar--during good times, hire like mad, when the dowturn starts, fire like mad. The common denominator: madness.

The reason for Yahoo's job cuts is "to better align costs with revenues", says Yang in his note. Which, in a way, is admission of the fact that they were not well-aligned before.

Anyone--including myself--who has worked in a large, global company can vouch for the incredible inefficiencies that these corporates build up when times are good: more people than they really need, more space than they require and more spending than is necessary. The employees, in turn, are pampered with ridiculous pay packets, bonuses, business class travel, five-star accommodation, etc.

When the business cycle turns south, head honchos of most of these corporations react with extreme steps in the opposite direction--layoffs, pay-cuts, freeze on expansion plans and mindless cost-cutting--all in an attempt to please the markets. The markets punish their stock anyway (just as they had overvalued them previously in bouts of irrational exuberance, ignoring their obvious inefficiencies).

The herd mentality that results in these ups and downs has only one victim in the end : the employee. But when you didn't mind being battened up by the employer during the boom, how can you complain when he leads you to the slaughterhouse during a bust.