AM I NEXT? LAYOFFS AT HSN (03/04/23)

MARCH 4, 2023 — 400 EMPLOYEES AT QVC AND HSN

Parent company Qurate Retail Group has announced 400 employees have been laid off at television-shopping companies QVC Inc. and Home Shopping Network as part of a multi-year growth strategy known as “Project Athens” that included cost reductions.

According to a Quarte spokesperson, “These decisions are not easy but are necessary for realigning how we manage the business and heighten focus on critical priorities.”

MARCH 31, 2018 — Original post…

St. Petersburg, Florida-based HSN, formerly Home Shopping Network, has announced that it is closing its subsidiary Ingenious Designs in Ronkonkoma, New York and laying off 66 employees. This is the company founded by Joy Mangano who invented the “Miracle Mop” which was purchased by HSN in 1999. The company’s design and product sourcing work will be relocated to West Chester, Pennsylvania to be closer to Qurate Retail Group, HSN’s parent corporation which also owns QVC and other online properties. The decision driving the closure is said to be purely economic.

Few inventors have been the subject of a major motion picture, and even fewer inventors of household products, but in 2015 “Joy” was released to tell the story of a single mother of three who created a retail phenomenon. The movie, written by David O. Russell and starring Jennifer Lawrence as Joy became an inspiration for creative girls and women throughout the nation. The movie also stars Robert DeNiro and Bradley Cooper.

Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Mangano.[

JOY is the wild story of a family across four generations centered on the girl who becomes the woman who founds a business dynasty and becomes a matriarch in her own right. Betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love, pave the road in this intense emotional and human comedy about becoming a true boss of family and enterprise facing a world of unforgiving commerce. Allies become adversaries and adversaries become allies, both inside and outside the family, as Joy’s inner life and fierce imagination carry her through the storm she faces.

Jennifer Lawrence stars, with Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen, Elisabeth Röhm and Dascha Polanco.

An interesting interview…

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. We see good people being laid off through no fault of their own. 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?

AM I NEXT? NO LOVE AT RAYTHEON (12/09/20)

DECEMBER 9, 2020 — 144 LAYOFFS IN COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

The company has announced 144 layoffs in Colorado Springs, Colorado after the loss of the North American Aerospace Defense Command Integrated Space Support Contract to Dallas, Texas-based Jacobs. The contract involved supporting classified communications and processing for command and control operations from air- and space-based threats to North America.

OCTOBER 27, 2020 — MAJOR PAIN AHEAD — NOW 19,000 LAYOFFS

 CEO Greg Hayes used the company’s earnings call to announce that Raytheon Technologies is cutting 15,000 staff and 4,000 contractor positions, largely at the company’s Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace divisions, due to decreased commercial aerospace sales from COVID-19 pandemic.

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020 — 15,000 JOBS TARGETED ACROSS THE ENTERPRISE

The company has announced that it plans a major reduction in force that will impact 15,000 jobs company-wide, including divisions Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace.

JULY 30, 202O — CONTINUING RESTRUCTURING,MAJOR JOB LOSS WITH PERMANENT LAYOFFS.

CEO Greg Hayes:

“The effects of the pandemic on the economy and commercial aerospace has proven to be a hell of a lot worse than what we originally projected even a few months ago.

“For that reason, we now would expect it will take at least until 2023 for commercial air traffic to recover to 2019 levels. As a result, we're evaluating what further actions and structural changes we need to make to our business to adjust for a prolonged recovery timeline.”

“I think it’s important to note, the commercial aerospace reduced to about 8,000 positions. Some of those will come back with volume. Some of them will be permanently reduced.”

“As I said, we’re also taking a hard look at the businesses given the environment and the prolonged recovery, and we’re going to take additional actions as we think is -- are appropriate. We will be nimble. We’re going to remain focused on what we can control and we’re going to adapt to the current environment and position our commercial aero businesses for growth, while also maintaining solid growth on the defense portfolio.”

OCTOBER 30, 2018 — Original post…

Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon, the iconic communications and defense contractor, has announced the layoff of 52 Orlando employees in its Orlando, Florida facility following the loss of a $3.5 billion dollar competitive contract to Lockheed Martin's Rotary & Mission Systems division in east Orlando, Florida. The facility will be partially closed. The contract covered the Army’s training aids, devices, simulators, and simulations maintenance program and will result in the layoff of skilled personnel in procurement, contract management, systems analysis and programming, and logistics.

According to a Raytheon spokesperson, “This is the result of the natural conclusion of our Warfighter FOCUS contract, which had trained virtually every U.S. Army soldier over the past 10 years. However, we continue to support our government customers’ training needs from our Orlando facility and other global locations as part of various other training contracts.”

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?

AMI I NEXT? LAYOFFS AT KEURIG DR. PEPPER

Burlington, Massachusetts-based Keurig Dr Pepper, a leading coffee and beverage company in North America, appears to be executing its post-merger consolidation to eliminate redundancies and to achieve cost efficiencies.

The restructuring will result in 120 layoffs in Vermont. The bulk of the layoffs are associated with the closure of the research and development/early production facility in Waterbury, with other job losses in Williston and Essex.

The R&D and early production activities will be transferred to the company’s manufacturing plants in Tennessee, Washington, Virginia, and Canada. According to the company’s spokesperson, “We’ve determined that it’s more effective to locate those testing capabilities within the production facilities where process improvements are being implemented.”

The spokesperson explained that the layoffs are associated with a “new organizational structure as a key step of our integration process.” “This was a key step of bringing out two companies together. This was not targeted at one individual company over another. As you can imagine, with a merger of this size, there is a duplication of roles, so in part, this is a rationalization of that. It’s also about us optimizing our organizational structure for speed, growth and efficiency.”

The company has announced that it would be cutting approximately 500 positions by January 2019 as the restructuring proceeds. Many of the layoffs have taken place with other cuts at the company’s two main offices in Plano, Texas; Burlington, Massachusetts, and other locations.

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?