Friday, January 16, 2009

Disconnection Notice

These are scary times.

Yesterday over a team lunch meeting my manager announced that our client's shares has plunged to record low levels and for that reason will be retrenching people from the outsourcing division - meaning us. The good news was that the US management has decided to keep the Philippine team and let go of some of the US team members. Smart decision since we get paid a lot less than our American counterparts. The bad news was that by March we will be on a 2.5 (3pm-12am) shift on a rotation basis to cover half of the US business hours. No one complained. That's better than having no job.

Late that afternoon I was IM'ing with a friend and she informed me of more grave news. Her company, which is a LARGE business, retrenched 500 of their people. She know a few of those retrenched. I know of only one.

The wrath of the economic crunch has finally reached Philippine shores.

9 comments:

Visual Velocity said...

The company I work for was also affected by the global economic slump, which sucks big time. No one was retrenched, but we're doing some serious cost-cutting measures right now, hehe.

Raft3r said...

times are hard indeed
good luck sa philippine labor force

gillboard said...

these are troubled times for call center industries in the philippines. I'm so grateful that I'm working for a stable company.

gillboard said...

best time talaga to save up for the slump. its times like these i'm thankful for having a stable job.

Ely said...

buti na lang ndi kami masyado affected. wawa naman mga Kano, kaya sila galit na galit sa outsourcing eh. :)

escape said...

this is indeed alarming. just in case you loose a job just tell me. my company is hiring! (kidding)

punky said...

tsk2.. kawawa naman sila.. ako unemployed pa rin.. toinks!

The Scud said...

andy > swerte ka! swerte tayo!

raft3r > good luck nga sa ating lahat. kawawa yung mga nareretrench.

gillboard > tama ka. kailangan na talaga mag-ipon.

ely > sobrang galit na siguro. sabi nga ng ka-teammate ko baka bombahin tayo ng mga kano. haha.

the dong > sige ba. kahit taga bitbit ng mga gamit mo oks na ako. hehe...

punky > good luck sa job hunting! that is kung naghahanap ka. hehe.

Anonymous said...

No job is stable anymore. Times are so different now from the way they were back in our parents' days. Jobs are more portable now in the sense that companies are now capable of quickly moving their operations to lower cost countries.

The Philippines should do whatever it can to stay competitive. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before we see all these BPO-related jobs move somewhere else. Sadly, that's the challenge and reality we're all dealing with.