NO LOVE AT HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE (12/2/20)

DECEMBER 2, 2020 — HP MOVING HEADQUARTERS FROM CALIFORNIA TO TEXAS.

The company has announced that it will be moving its corporate offices from San Jose, California to Houston, Texas. The company claims that it will keep its San Jose campus, but one can never rely on representations from a company in flux.

Considering California’s increasing taxation, hostile business climate, cost of living, and talented individuals who are leaving Caliornia each day, a future of California layoffs or relocations is on the horizon.

The company’s new campus is under construction and scheduled to be completed 2022. Although the company claims there will be no layoffs, they also note that it is “unclear how many employees the move will affect.” — Code words to pack your bags or try to reposition.

Forewarned is forearmed.

JULY 21, 2020 — 146 LAYOFFS AT THE WESBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE

The company has laid off 146 employees at its Westborough, Massachusetts office. Many of employees originally worked for SimpliVity that was acquired by HP three years ago. It appears that some of the SimpliVity support and development operations to Bangalore, India.

According to a company spokesperson, “Unifying our R&D strategy for both HPE Nimble Storage dHCI and HCI (hyperconverged infrastructure) will allow customers to benefit from a consistent and better experience across hybrid cloud, AIOps, support, automation, and lifecycle management for all of their HCI use cases. As part of this plan, there will be a reduction in the HPE HCI headcount.

It is unknown if the Westborough office will be closed in the near future.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2017

Published reports by reputable business publications such as Bloomberg News suggest that Hewlett Packard Enterprise is prepared to layoff up to ten-percent of its worldwide workforce, approximately 5,000 workers in the immediate future. This is part of HPE’s continuing realignment and restructuring to find relevance in today’s cloud environment and to compete with the other large players in the IT services space. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) was created on November 1, 2015 as part of splitting of the original Hewlett-Packard company. The company is headed by CEO Meg Whitman who still needs to prove to investors that HPE is a long-term play when measured against Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and others who are already in the cloud.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?

NO LOVE AT CSX RAILROAD

Driven by hedge-fund activism, former Canadian Pacific CEO Hunter Harrison has now moved to major rail transportation provider CSX and is prepared to undertake a modernization and turnaround plan based on the “precision scheduled railroading” model which optimizes equipment, personnel, loads, and routing. Of course, the only fly in the ointment is unanticipated events such as equipment failures, derailments, or significant changes in both scheduled and unscheduled demand.

SLIDE 12 - CSX WORKFORCE REDUCTIONS

As the recent Cowen and Company investor’s conference, CSX Chief Financial Officer Frank Lonegro presented optimistic news about CSX’s recovery and growth prospects. Unfortunately, as noted by slide 12 in the presentation deck, the improvements came with a very heavy cost in employee layoffs. Lonegro explained, “The industry has made great progress, but we did not make meaningful progress when others did.”  Last year (2016) CSX’s operating ratio was 69.4% with a target of mid-60’s in 2017.

As per a previous post, NO LOVE AT UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD, UP was “prepared to spend approximately $90 million, including $15 million for severance pay plus pension benefits and other expenses, to reduce their operating ratio from last quarter’s 61.8 percent to a more desirable 55.5%.”

This shows how far CSX may have to go to play catch-up. Look for continuing reductions in force.

NO LOVE AT CABELA’S & BASS PRO SHOPS (08/16/24)

AUGUST 16, 2024 — MARINE DIVISION TARGETED

Another 100 employees were targeted at the company’s White River Marine Group boat manufacturing plants in Lebanon and Bolivar, Missouri.

In April, the company laid off 176 employees at three boat manufacturing facilities in Lebanon, Bolivar, and Flippin, Arkansas.

A company spokesperson noted, “As you probably are aware, the current economic environment is very challenging for many sectors of the economy, including automotive, power sports, and agriculture. Inflationary pressures coupled with a dramatic increase in interest rates are contributing to a downturn in the economy, creating stiff headwinds in the recreational boating industry. With slowing consumer demand, we must lower production and regretfully make the difficult decision to reduce our workforce.

The decision to eliminate any position is not something we take lightly. Our employees are the best in the industry, and they have never wavered in their commitment to build superior products for our customers. Out of respect and appreciation for their dedicated service, the company will continue to support each Outfitter as fairly as possible through the transition.

Today, we reduced our aluminum boat manufacturing workforce by approximately 10%. After these reductions, we employ approximately 1,000 team members in our Ozarks aluminum operations (primarily Lebanon & Bolivar, Mo.). Given the cyclical nature of the industry, we are hopeful that we can recall impacted workers as market pressures ease.

Bass Pro’s marine manufacturing division is known as the White River Marine Group, which manufactures and distributes Tracker, Ranger, Nitro, Triton, Sun Tracker, Regency, Tahoe, Mako, and Ascend Kayaks.

NOVEMBER 8, 2019 — SURPRISE MOVE FROM SIDNEY, NEBRASKA TO SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI

Bass Pro Shops announced it will move nearly 120 jobs from its Cabela’s Sidney location to its corporate headquarters in Springfield, Missouri starting in 2020.

According to a company spokesperson, “The company fully appreciates the importance of the fine people of Cabela’s to the town of Sidney and the surrounding area,., Bass Pro Shops united with Cabela’s in 2017 in an effort to strengthen and grow the iconic Cabela’s brand, which was facing significant financial headwinds.

“The united company has relied upon talent and leadership from both entities to strengthen the organization and better serve its customers. The relocations are consistent with the company’s long-term commitment to efficiently provide the highest level of customer service.”

DECEMBER 6, 2018 — SIDNEY CITY OFFICIALS ACKNOWLEDGE THE LOSS.

“With the estimated 1,500 corporate jobs lost from Cabela’s in Sidney, it made a huge impact on the city.”

“‘We have seen a huge impact with the loss of jobs and the relocation of jobs from Cabela’s to Bass Pro Corporate Office in Springfield, Missouri,’ said Melissa Norgard, Economic Development Director for City of Sidney.”

Original post…

There is more at stake than the jobs at Cabela’s, the future of Sidney, Nebraska is also at risk. Cabela’s, a specialty retailer of outdoor sports gear, was purchased by their largest competitor, Bass Pro Shops, for $5.5 BILLION and there are bound to be numerous layoffs as the company’s duplicative core functions are either eliminated or moved to Springfield, Missouri the home of Bass Pro Shops. The acquisition comes as no surprise and there were approximately 70 people laid off in March 2017. The most secure jobs are probably the lower-end retail employees who know the business and can keep the doors open. Both companies have a similar founding story and company culture. Unfortunately, we are seeing contractions in retail, especially in lifestyle merchandise. The company’s prime demographic is aging and the industry is being decimated  by e-tailers without the heavy investment in brick, mortar, and employees.

While Bass Pro Shops is not a public company and is therefore immune from Wall Street-type pressures, it appears that the public Cabela’s was forced into the deal by hedge fund Elliott Management which held a significant stake in the company with options to buy even more equity. According to published reports, Elliot demanded restructuring, cost-cutting, and then finally suggested a sale. Then there was both public (outside agitators) and minority investor pressure on Cabela’s to eliminate its lucrative sales of high-power semi-automatic hunting weapons. All leading to this acquisition.

I had previously purchased a number of items from Cabela’s over the years and found the merchandise selection, quality, and customer service to be superb. Like Kerr’s Sporting Goods, the original Abercrombie and Fitch, L.L. Bean, Cabela’s will be missed.

Change is coming. There will always be a tomorrow, no matter how much you may try to ignore it. There are no guarantees in life, or promises for a bright future. Just because something bad hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it won't. It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere. No one is guaranteed to wake up tomorrow and still have a job by evening. Are you now wondering, Am I Next?