First Quarter 2011 Hirings, Firings, Layoffs, Resignations By The Numbers

** Update the first quarter has come and gone, and there have been thousands of layoffs in the first quarter of 2011.  Many of these were mass layoff events and often unpublished, others were not very high profile.

Source: BLS

Below you will find some of the most prolific layoffs announced during the first quarter for 2011.  However there were thousands and looking for layoffs in the news everyday is a full time job and a depressing one at that.  You can see a massive list put together at Daily Job Cuts for January, February and March of 2011.

Seasoned veterans of business know that just because you might have kept your job through Christmas you still need to make it through the first quarter.  We’re here to keep a running tally on the first quarter 2011 regarding hiring, layoffs, firings, and “resignations”.

The ADP Employment report overstated it’s hiring most likely do to temporary workers.  We talked about how only 4 large companies declared they would be hiring over 150,000 workers for the holiday shopping season.

Those are temporary workers and they will soon be gone, only to join the ranks of the unemployed once again.  Also as we discussed corporate layoffs typically continue through the first quarter of the new year, we have until March to get an idea of the real direction of the economy.

Hiring Announcements

Ford Motor Company – 7000 jobs to be filled between 2011 and 2012.

Spirit AeroSystems – plans to hire 200 workers in first quarter 2011.

Amway – 7 openings in Ada MI.

Google -Says it wants to hire more than 6,000 workers this year.

Compuware – Says it intends to hire 150 workers in Detroit.

ForeSee Results – Plans to have 80 new hires in 2011.

Sears Holdings – After a 3 year search hired a new CEO.

AMD – Announced it needs to hire 1,000 workers for 2011.

Overall it is hard to actually hire employees overnight, but much easier to remove them from your head count.

Layoffs

Confirmed  – Saks Fifth Avenue closing store in Denver.

Confirmed – Blockbuster 182 stores to close.

Confirmed – Borders closing Tennessee distribution center 310 jobs lost.

Confirmed – Sony 300 workers at New Jersey CD plant.

Confirmed – Borders eliminated 15 management positions.

Confirmed – Best Buy cutting Geek Squad center 45 people affected.

Confirmed -  Myspace lays off 500 workers read the letter from Myspace here.  Previously rumored to be up to 550 employees.

City of Camden New Jersey up to 383 workers to be laid off.

Confirmed – Borders lays off 45 workers at their Ann Arbor headquarters.

Confirmed – Steelcase to close 3 factories and lay off 400 workers.

Confirmed – CompX Durislide to lay off 97 workers and close facility in MI, moving back to Canada.

Confirmed – Boeing to lay off 900 workers in California.

JCPenney is closing its Kentwood MI catalog call center affecting 370 employees.

US Postal Service (USPS) is looking to close 2,491 locations starting in March. At the current pace of spending the USPS is going to completely broke by October.  Here is a list of Post Offices that will close in 2011.

Activision Blizzard- Will layoff about 7% of its workforce or about 500 workers.

Goodyear Tire – Closing Union City Tennessee Plant and will affect 1,900 workers by the end of the year.

Ultimate Electronics – 1,500 workers will lose their jobs as the chain is liquidating its business.

Providence Rhode Island – nearly 2,000 teachers are getting laid off to cover a $40 million deficit.

Seahawk Drilling – Selling off all assets in bankruptcy in its last annual report it had 600 employees listed, the AP says they currently have 494 and it is “unknown” what their outcome will be.

Confirmed – Borders bankruptcy will result in roughly 6,000 employees that will lose their jobs.

Detroit Public Library  will cut 20% of its employees due to budget constraints which is 83 workers.

Medtronic – will cut 1500 – 2000 workers.

Allen Park, MI – announces it intends to lay off its entire fire department it will affect 25 people.

Silicon Graphics – announced in February that it will lay off 4% of its workforce or 55 people.

AOL – Fresh on the heals of its completed Huffington Post acquisition the company is laying off 200 employees based in the United States and another 700 based in India.

Fired

Confirmed – University of Michigan – -1 Rich Rodriguez

Wayne County Michigan – Road Chief Mike Rodgers was fired for his job or lack thereof of clearing the expressways during last weeks snow storm.

Time Inc – Jack Griffin CEO of Time was fired over leadership style.

General Motors – CFO Christopher Liddell is being pushed out, and replaced with Daniel Ammann.

City of Pontiac Michigan – The city’s Police Chief Val Gross was fired.

“Resignations”

Confirmed  – City of Detroit -2 Fire Chief, Deputy

Confirmed – Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) – CEO Dirk Meyer resigned over growth.

Clearwire – CEO of Clearwire William Morrow resigned for “personal reasons”.

NPR – Ron Schiller and CEO Vivian Schiller “resign” from NPR over hidden camera sting.

Engadget – Two of the top editors of the site leave.

Detroit News – The Detroit News automotive critic Scott Burgess resigned over apparently being too critical of the holier than thou Chrysler 200 in the Detroit News.  Full story at Jalopnik.

We’ll update this list as data emerges on the first quarter.

Feel free to leave comments or email us at Careerpurgatory@gmail.com if you have a tip.