45 per cent US firms consider hiring temp workers: Survey

Restructuring workforce seems to be another lesson taught by the economic slowdown as a large number of American companies are expecting to hire temporary workers as IT and professional staff in the near future, a survey has found.

Forty five per cent of the polled organisations anticipate hiring temporary workers as part of their present and future workforce, according to a report by staffing services provider Veritude. The research also found that 25 per cent of the organisations polled plan to increase temporary IT and professional hiring in the near future.

“The present economy has forced almost every company to re-examine and restructure their hiring and staffing models,” Veritude executive vice-president Tom Hart said.

“Hiring qualified temporary knowledge workers gives companies more flexibility as well as opportunities to reduce costs, which are important factors in any economy. Our research uncovered that many organisations have used the
current economic lull to redefine the composition of their workforces,” Hart added.

Recognising the benefits of a temporary staff strategy, 33 per cent organisations discern more flexibility to scale workforce to match demand and 30 per cent recognise the ability to handle seasonal fluctuations and the ability to use a “try before you buy” approach.

Besides, one in five executives also reported that high unemployment rate has resulted in more qualified temporary workers.

“Hiring temporary workers can reduce overall hiring risk and augment a company’s core workforce with specialised skills. This is critical among professional and IT job categories, where the abundance of available job candidates has done little to quell the need for the right talent,” Hart added.

Temporary workers are a fundamental part of the re-evaluation of how work gets done, but companies are still most concerned with making the right hire, not just any hire, Hart said.

Many companies are moving away from the fragmented model of working with multiple agencies to using a managed service programme (MSP).

MSP providers can streamline processes, reduce costs, and alleviate substantial risks and administrative burdens.

IBM layoffs to touch 16,000

IBM layoffs may touch 16,000 by the year end, claims employee group Alliance@IBM. In a news report, Alliance said that it has counted about 184 employees who have been laid off in the most recent round of cuts, based on employee information packets it received so far. However, it believes the number exceeds that, according to Lee Conrad, the union's national coordinator.

Commenting on the layoffs, an IBM spokesperson reportedly said in a note that IBM is constantly managing resources as client demands evolve across a base of nearly 400,000 employees.

In January, Alliance@IBM estimated that as many as 16,000 employees may be cut by the end of 2009, and the group is standing by that figure. Based on its count so far, at least 10,000 job have already been cut.

IBM recently posted second-quarter earnings that trumped Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year profit forecast.

Recently Citi analyst Richard Gardner raised his target price on IBM to $135 from $125. In a research note, he said that IBM will save $500 million more this year than it had anticipated.

The company said in March it wanted to cut costs by $3 billion. But it has slashed expenses by $1.5 billion thus far, with another $2 billion coming later in the year.

Ex-employees sue HP on unpaid incentives

Three former Hewlett-Packard Co salespeople sued the printer maker alleging they were denied tens of thousands of dollars in commissions because of a malfunction in the company’s order-management system.

As many as 50,000 current and former salespeople haven’t received commissions and bonuses because of problems with the software system that tracks sales, called Omega, according to a lawsuit filed with federal court in San Francisco.

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest maker of personal computers and printers, said on August 5 that about 2,000 members of its global sales team of 23,000 were affected by the Omega glitch. The company was working to fix the problem, spokeswoman Gina
Giamanco said then.

The complaint was filed by Shaun Simmons, a former sales representative who says he’s owed at least $30,000 in commissions, and two other former salespeople. All three reside in Colorado. They seek to represent all Hewlett-Packard salespeople who didn’t get paid and recoup their bonuses and commissions.

Barry Dunn, a Colorado attorney representing the former HP workers, and Christina Schneider, a spokeswoman for Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard, didn’t immediately return voice-mail messages seeking comment after regular business hours.

IBM union: Layoffs could hit 16,000 by year's end

IBM's job cuts, in most cases, appear incremental and regular
Source: ComputerWorld
There's always a little bit of stealth to IBM's workforce reductions. Layoffs are usually scattered across the country and in numbers small enough to avoid triggering state and federal mass layoff notification laws. And so it was this week, as IBM cut employees from its Global Business Services unit.

IBM never comments on its cuts, the size or locations. It never says anything more about the reason for its reductions than it did today, in a note sent via a spokesman: "IBM is constantly managing resources as client demands evolve across a base of nearly 400,000 employees."

This means that the best information on IBM's workforce reduction in the U.S. come from two sources: The company's own annual report, which shows the year-to-year changes in its U.S. workforce, and the Alliance@IBM.

The Alliance says it has counted about 184 employees who have been laid off in the most recent round of cuts, based on employee information packets it received so far. But it believes the number exceeds that, according to Lee Conrad, the union's national coordinator.

In January, Conrad estimated that as many as 16,000 employees may be cut this year and it's standing by that figure. Based on its count so far, at least 10,000 employees have already been culled from the workforce because of the recession and offshoring.

"It is not right that IBM continues to keep job cut numbers, locations and divisions secret," said Conrad in an email. "IBM needs to come clean on how many jobs are being terminated as the work is offshored. We call for full transparency." The Alliance@IBM is a Communications Workers of America local that doesn't have enough members to gain official recognition as a bargaining unit.

IBM's annual report, which is due out next winter, will likely sum up the net impact of the company's shrinking U.S. workforce. In 2006, IBM employed 127,000 in the U.S; in 2007, 121,000; and last year, 115,000. Meanwhile, its employment in India, Brazil and other nations has been increasing.

Laid-off employees receive a 30-plus page package that includes what appears to be IBM's standard severance package. The last few pages of these packets usually include a listing of the job title being cut, employee ages and the number of people at a particular age. For instance, "SR Managing Consultant (MGR) 36(1), 37(1), 47(1), 53(1), 57(1), and 59(1). Or Assoc Partner Sales, Mgmt Auth 35(2), 37(1), 38(3), 39(1), 41(1), 46(2), 47(1), 48(1), 49(1), 52(3), 53(1), 55(1), and 56(1)."

More layoffs at IBM

There has been another round of layoffs at IBM, according to media reports. According to a report in the Poughkeepsie Journal, IBM this week confirmed laying off a "small number" of employees.

IBM reportedly made the admission after the employee group Alliance@IBM told media that Big Blue had laid off about 200 US workers in its Global Business Services division.

"The IBM US employee population continues to shrink through job cuts and offshoring," Alliance@IBM national organizer Lee Conrad was quoted as saying.

The layoffs aren't nearly as severe as those revealed in March, when IBM reportedly laid off 5,000 US employees, while transferring many of the jobs to India.

IBM recently posted second-quarter earnings that trumped Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year profit forecast.

Recently Citi analyst Richard Gardner raised his target price on IBM to $135 from $125. In a research note, he said that IBM will save $500 million more this year than it had anticipated.

The company said in March it wanted to cut costs by $3 billion. But it has slashed expenses by $1.5 billion thus far, with another $2 billion coming later in the year.

RealNetworks lays off 9 percent in music division

Entertainment software company Real Networks laid off 12 employees within its music division or about 9 percent of the division staff, the company said Thursday.

The cuts come a week after RealNetworks reported marked decreases in the number of subscribers at its Rhapsody music subscription and online radio units.

Rhapsody, which is partly owned by Viacom's MTV Networks, lost 50,000 of its 800,000 subscribers over the past three months, RealNetworks said last week in its second-quarter earnings report.

In addition, a partnership with telecom company Comcast ended and that was blamed for a dramatic drop-off in RealNetworks' radio subscribers, from 1.2 million down to 75,000, the company reported. That's not a typo. When Comcast discontinued the service, more than 1.1 million no longer had access to Rhapsody.

Layoffs rise in US 1st time in 6 months

Job cuts announced by US employers jumped 31 per cent in July to over 97,000, increasing for the first time in six months, warning of a further hike in downsizing activity by the last quarter of the year, a report said on Thursday.

After falling to a 15-mo-nth low in June planned job cuts announced by US employers jumped to 97,373 in July. It was the first increase in monthly job cuts since January, global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas said here in its latest report.

“After June’s surprisingly low job-cut total, a July rebound was not entirely unexpected. While there are signs that the economy is stabilising and the pace of layoffs slowing, we are still a long way from a full recovery. In fact, monthly job cuts are likely to return to levels in excess of 100,000 by the fourth quarter,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John Challenger said.

Job cuts had fallen 33 per cent in June to 74,393, the lowest monthly total since March 2008. The July total was 6 per cent lower than the same month a year ago, when employers announced 1,03,312 cuts. So far this year, employers have announced 9,94,048 job cuts, 72 per cent more than 5,79,260 layoffs through the first seven months of 2008.

The July surge in job cuts was led by firms in the transportation industry, which announced plans to reduce payrolls by 27,954 positions, a five-fold increase from the June layoff total of 5,587.

The telecommunicatio-ns sector also experienced an increase in layoffs last month with job cuts surging to 17,601 in July from 802 in June.

The automotive sector, has seen layoff announcements decline in each of the last three months.

Years after layoffs, many still struggle to match old salaries

Chuck Dettman said he had not really considered the notion back in 2001 that he and his friends in a job-search support group would never recover from being laid off.

The country was in a recession then, as now, and the professionals who had just lost their jobs met weekly at a local job center to network and trade advice. Despite the national economic problems, they remained confident that they would not only find work but would also be compensated as they had been in the past.

Eight years later, however, most of the people who formed the core of Dettman’s group have not made it back to their old income levels, even if they eventually landed jobs.

"I think there’s maybe only one or two that have been successful in making what they did then," Dettman said.

Taken together, their struggles are stark illustration that it can take years for a worker’s earnings to bounce back after a layoff, and that it can take even longer for a layoff during a recession. Economists, in fact, say income losses for workers who are let go in a recession can persist for as long as two decades, a depressing prognosis for the 5.9 million people who have lost their jobs in the current recession.

"On average, most workers do not recover their old annual earnings," said Till von Wachter, an economics professor at Columbia University, who recently completed a paper with two other economists that examined the long-term earnings of workers who lost their jobs in the recession of the early 1980s.

Wachter studied workers who had been with their companies at least three years, then lost their jobs when their employers reduced their work forces by at least 30 percent. He found that even 15 to 20 years later, most on average had not returned to their old wage levels. He also concluded that their earnings were about 15 percent to 20 percent less than they would have been had they not been laid off.

One of the main reasons for the drop-offs, according to economists, is that workers who endure a layoff are more likely to be laid off again.

"What tends to happen is the worker has to start over with a new employer, sometimes in a new industry," said Ann Huff Stevens, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. "You’re at the bottom of the totem pole again."

(Although some unqualified workers are undoubtedly laid off, Wachter said he tried to correct for that possibility in his study. He focused on large-scale layoffs to ensure he was following mostly workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.)

The largest wage losses are typically for workers who had long tenures at their previous companies. The stability often allows them to build up skills specific to their employers or their industries and to accrue corresponding wage increases, but those skills can be worth less to other companies.

Older workers’ wages usually slide more than those of younger workers. Those with college degrees do slightly better than those without.

The networking group that Dettman helped form in 2001 was initially made up mostly of former colleagues of his from Pratt & Whitney, the jet engine maker, which laid off hundreds of workers at the end of 2000 in a restructuring. The group members were all in their 40s and 50s.

Interviews with seven early members of the group found that many had been forced to drastically change their lifestyles to cope with lower incomes. Several have struggled with long bouts of unemployment. Some were laid off several times. Many have been forced to lean heavily on spouses’ incomes.

Dettman, who was a business analyst and earned just more than $50,000 after nearly 20 years with Pratt, spent almost four years looking for work, exhausting his savings and his 401(k). He finally took a job as the chief financial officer of a drug and alcohol detox clinic run by his daughter and his son-in-law, getting paid three-quarters of what he used to make, without benefits. He quit two years ago to start his own Christian counseling service but has yet to draw a paycheck.

Jim Clark, 60, a former engineering assistant at Pratt who made about $49,000 a year, went back to school to earn a bachelor’s degree in organizational management but has still not found full-time paid employment. He now scrapes together about $20,000 a year as a cantor at his Roman Catholic parish on Sundays and by singing at weddings and funerals.

The only former group member interviewed who is now earning more than she did before is Karen Carron, a 19-year Pratt veteran and computer programmer. Carron, 49, who has a master’s degree in computer science, made about $69,000 a year as part of a team producing software for the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet.

About a year-and-a-half after being laid off, she found herself doing almost exactly what she had done before, only this time for a Pratt contractor. She now earns $80,000 a year.

Carron said she was not familiar with other programming languages that are more broadly used, so she was lucky to have found a job working on the same project. Otherwise, she said, she would almost certainly have had to take a pay cut.

In contrast, others in the group who managed to land steady paychecks have had to struggle to get back on track.

David Himmelheber, 58, worked more than 20 years at Pratt in the graphics department, earning about $54,000 a year at the end. He was one of the first members of the group to find a job, but it was in an entirely new field, as a business liaison for a vocational school, making about half his old salary. He eventually moved to teaching social studies at the school and now makes about $40,000 a year. He also found work as an adjunct professor at a local college. The two teaching assignments combined, however, bring in less than what he used to make at Pratt.

Bill Sankey, 62, a computer programmer, earned about $55,000 a year for a company that owned Pizza Hut franchises, before being laid off in 2001 when the company was sold. Since then, Sankey has been hired and laid off twice. At one point, he was making more than he did before his 2001 layoff. At his latest job, he is back to making about the same, though with inflation factored in, he is probably making less.

"I really haven’t progressed anywhere financially in eight years," he said.

US jobless claims edge up last week

The number of US workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose slightly more than expected last week, but the number of workers staying on jobless roles fell to the lowest in three months, government data showed on Thursday.

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 584,000 in the week ended July 25, the Labor Department said, a touch above market expectations for a reading of 570,000.

However, the four-week moving average for new claims, considered to be a better gauge of underlying trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell by 8,250 to 559,000. This was the lowest level since late January.

The weekly moving average has declined for five straight weeks. A Labor Department official said the trend in claims was now backing to where it would have been without July distortions caused by the timing of auto plant shutdowns.

US stock index futures extended gains on the data which bolstered views that the recession was starting to ebb. US government bond prices fell, while the dollar gained versus the yen.

"The headline number in the jobless claims report was slightly worse than expected, but the continuing claims component was getting better so that bodes well for the US economy going forward," said Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital in Toronto.

Continuing claims -- the number of people staying on the benefit rolls after collecting an initial week of aid -- fell by 54,000 to 6.20 million in the week ended July 18, the latest week for which the data is available.

This was the lowest since early April and marked the third straight week that this measure had declined.

Recent data, including home sales and prices, have added to growing optimism the recession is ending, but high unemployment continues to weigh on consumer sentiment, meaning that the economy's recovery will be feeble.

Analysts have been closely monitoring initial jobless claims for signs of stability in the labor market, which has been hard hit by the 19-month old recession.

The insured unemployment rate, which measures the per centage of the insured labor force who are jobless, was unchanged at 4.7 per cent.

Verizon to cut 8,000 jobs

Cost-cutting at Verizon Communications Inc's wireline business failed to keep pace with falling revenues as the US’ largest wireless carrier reported a 21 percent drop in second-quarter profit and announced further job cuts.

The company said Monday it will cut more than 8,000 employee and contractor jobs before the end of the year in the wireline business, speeding up its efforts to keep costs in line, according to chief financial officer John Killian.

In recent years, Verizon has balanced layoffs in wireline with hiring in wireless, but Chief Operating Officer Denny Strigl said that would not be the case this time.

Verizon ended the quarter with 235,000 employees, up from 229,000 a year ago, despite already cutting 8,000 jobs during the year. Contractor jobs are not included in those totals.

The earnings announced narrowly beat Wall Street expectations, and Verizon said demand for cell phones and its new home TV service were holding up well in the recession.

Verizon earned $1.48 billion, or 52 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30. That's down from $1.88 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding special items, mainly for job cuts, New York-based Verizon says it earned 63 cents per share, beating by a penny the average analyst forecast as polled by Thomson Reuters.

Verizon Wireless had already revealed how many subscribers it added in the quarter, saying on Friday that net additions were 1.1 million. That was also roughly in line with analyst expectations. It ended the quarter with 87.7 million customers, ahead of AT&T's 79.6 million.

AT&T added more subscribers in the quarter: a net of 1.37 million. The iPhone continued to make AT&T a first choice for those willing to spend a premium on wireless service, particularly as the carrier and partner Apple Inc. launched a new model in June.

Intuit's 120 layoffs include 25 in Reno

About 25 workers in Reno are among those being laid off by Intuit Inc. Officials for the software company based in Mountainview, Calif., say the employees in Intuit's small business division in Reno are among 120 layoffs nationwide the company announced earlier this month.

Corporate spokeswoman Holly Perez says the jobs have become redundant as a result of Intuit's acquisition of PayCycle, a leading online payroll company serving small businesses, accountants and financial institutions.
She says all the laid off workers in Reno were given 60-day notices and have been invited to explore other employment opportunities within the company.

AOL Tells Employees Job Cuts Possible After Review

AOL’s new Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong told employees today that job cuts are possible as he undertakes a 60-day review of the Internet company’s cost structure, a company spokeswoman said.

Armstrong said at a companywide meeting that he’s working on financial plans, and part of that process could include staff reductions, Tricia Primrose, a spokeswoman for AOL, said in an e-mail. She didn’t specify how many jobs may be eliminated.

After completing a 100-day review of AOL’s strategy, Armstrong said in an interview last week that he plans to overhaul advertising and develop more local Web sites to revive falling sales. Time Warner Inc. plans to spin off AOL, which employs about 7,000 people, into a separate, publicly traded company later this year.

Time Warner, based in New York, fell 30 cents to $27.58 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have gained 24 percent this year. The possible cuts were reported earlier by Silicon Alley Insider.

Continental widens loss, cuts 1,700 jobs

About 1,700 jobs are to be cut at Continental Airlines Inc., which on Tuesday reported an increased second-quarter loss.

Houston-based Continental (NYSE: CAL) reported a net loss of $213 million, or $1.72 cents per share, on revenue of $3.1 billion, for the three months ended June 30. That compared with a net loss of $5 million, or 5 cents per share, on revenue of $4 billion in the same quarter last year.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the airline to have a net loss of $1.35 per share.

In a Tuesday conference call, company executives confirmed that the company would be reducing its work force by about 1,700 employees — or nearly 4 percent of its 43,000 employees. Cuts will be companywide and will include management and clerical positions.

Sony Online lays off 5% of staff

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is laying off 41 members of staff, some 5% of its total workforce. It claims that the redundancies are intended to "increase operational efficiency and reduce costs".

SOE recently celebrated the success of its 3D virtual world Free Realms, and claims that its online games franchise is still thriving. However, Sony warned in December that it would cut 8,000 full-time jobs and 8,000 part-timers by 2010 in response to the global economic crisis.

SOE has not revealed which game titles and projects will be affected by the reorganisation, saying the layoffs are "company wide, from a variety of departments."

Citigroup cuts nearly 30,000 jobs in second quarter

Citigroup has slashed nearly 30,000 jobs in the second quarter of this year as the banking major resorted to cost cutting measures to tackle the financial turmoil.

The banking behemoth has swung into a profit of $4.28 billion in the second quarter on the back of a gain of $6.7 billion from the stake sale of Smith Barney brokerage.

According to the company, in the second quarter, the number of employees stood at around 2,79,000.

"Head count declined by approximately 30,000 from the first quarter of 2009, to 2,79,000, mainly driven by Smith Barney transaction," Citigroup said while announcing the second quarter results today.

"Head count is now approximately 96,000 below peak levels. June was the 20th consecutive month of head count decline," the statement said.

In the second quarter of last year, the company had a loss of $2.49 billion, it said in a statement.

Revenues for the second quarter surged 71 per cent to $30 billion as compared to the same period a year ago. In the comparable period, revenues stood at $17.5 billion.

Citigroup has already received three lifelines from the US Federal government including fresh capital injection to the tune of $45 billion to tide over the financial turmoil.Citigroup cuts nearly 30,000 jobs in second quarter
Citigroup has already received three lifelines from the US government including fresh capital injection to the tune of $45 bn to tide over crisis.

NEW YORK: Citigroup has slashed nearly 30,000 jobs in the second quarter of this year as the banking major resorted to cost cutting measures to tackle the financial turmoil.

The banking behemoth has swung into a profit of $4.28 billion in the second quarter on the back of a gain of $6.7 billion from the stake sale of Smith Barney brokerage.

According to the company, in the second quarter, the number of employees stood at around 2,79,000.

"Head count declined by approximately 30,000 from the first quarter of 2009, to 2,79,000, mainly driven by Smith Barney transaction," Citigroup said while announcing the second quarter results today.

"Head count is now approximately 96,000 below peak levels. June was the 20th consecutive month of head count decline," the statement said.

In the second quarter of last year, the company had a loss of $2.49 billion, it said in a statement.

Revenues for the second quarter surged 71 per cent to $30 billion as compared to the same period a year ago. In the comparable period, revenues stood at $17.5 billion.

Citigroup has already received three lifelines from the US Federal government including fresh capital injection to the tune of $45 billion to tide over the financial turmoil.

Boeing cutting 1,000 more jobs

Boeing will slash about 1,000 jobs from its Integrated Defense Systems department because of funding cuts by the Pentagon, according to a memo to employees. These cuts are in addition to previously announced job cuts at the aerospace giant.

The Boeing news, coupled with job cut announcements Tuesday at NASA and US Airways, is a stark reminder of the continued precarious position of the U.S. worker in a severe recession that won't loosen its grip.

Reports: Cisco lays off up to 700 in Silicon Valley on Thursday

Cisco Systems Inc. is laying off up to 700 employees as part of its ongoing restructuring, according to reports Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal and Market Watch, citing sources familiar with the move, said the San Jose-based company's latest layoffs are part of a plan that was announced earlier to cut up to 2,000 positions worldwide.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Cisco also cut some employees elsewhere in the country, but a total number wasn't available. At the end of April Cisco had 66,558 employees.

McGraw-Hill cuts 550 jobs including IT jobs

McGraw-Hill Cos., hit by declines in its education, financial services and media properties, says it has cut 550 jobs.

The New York company publishes textbooks and owns BusinessWeek magazine and the credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor's.

McGraw-Hill says the deepest cutbacks were in the education unit, which lost 340 positions, followed by information and media with 125 and financial services with 85.

The recession has cut across a broad swath of the company's businesses. McGraw-Hill reported a 22 percent drop in first quarter profit in April.

This week the company signaled that it may seek a buyer for BusinessWeek, which is facing an industrywide crises brought on by the shift of advertisers to the Internet on top of a severe recession.

Tech sector job cuts in USA slow in second quarter: Survey

Computer technology job cuts declined 60 percent in the second quarter, ending June 30, compared with the first quarter, according to a survey released Monday.

Planned layoffs announced by computer, electronics and telecommunications companies totaled 33,890 in the second quarter, according to Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an consultation firm.

That was down 60 percent from the previous quarter when tech-sector job cuts reached 84,220, the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2002.

The second-quarter figure is nearly equal to the 33,650 job cuts announced during the same period a year ago.

Despite the second-quarter decline, tech-sector job cuts for the first half of the year reached about 118,100, which is the largest six-month total in seven years.

The second quarter improvement may be signaling a turnaround for an industry that has been impacted heavily by the recession, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

However, Ann Gallaher, chief operating officer at Dayton-based industry group Technology First, said it also could be that companies have aligned expenses with income, thus reducing new layoffs.

“I think people were told to cut by ‘X’ percent, and now they have done that, and they are living within the budget that they were allocated,” Gallaher said. “Things will have to get worse before there will be a second round (of layoffs).”

AOL: More Layoffs Inevitable

More layoffs are likely coming to AOL.
Next week, CEO Tim Armstrong will announce plans for the company to focus on four businesses -- content publishing, ad network, local, and communications. AOL will fuel those four with revenues from its still huge but quickly shrinking access business.

What Tim might not say is that AOL does not need its current headcount of ~8,000 employees to pursue this plan. A simple benchmarking exercise suggests that AOL probably needs about 5,000 instead of 7,000 employees.
Source: BusinessInsider