Results tagged “jobs”

Someone on the contribute page chided us about not covering this story, so here you go, folks: Redwood City's Electronic Arts, creator of such awesomeness as SimCity, The Sims, and Rock Band -- cut 1,500 jobs today, more than 16% of its workforce. The economy, and you might have guessed, is to blame. Chin up, (former) EA ilk.

Over the next year, and due to Oracle's takeover, Sun Microsystems plans on eradicating over 3,000 jobs. According to CBS 5/BCN, "They are the latest in a series of job cuts at the server and software maker, whose prolonged financial troubles led to the $7.4 billion deal with Oracle in April." Good luck out there, Sun folks.

Want to see MGMT's sold-out show at the Independent tonight? Well, this Craigslist ad, which came to us via SFist's contribute page, might help:

Yesterday, Mayor Newsom's office announced a new initiative called JOBS NOW!, which aims to fund jobs using federal stimulus money for 1,000 San Francisco residents who have at least one child and earn less than twice the federal poverty level, which equals about $37,000 a year for a family of three or $44,000 for a family of four. The $25 million worth of federal funds will subsidize the successful candidates' salaries at jobs provided by the local government, private businesses, and nonprofits through September of 2010. Employers will be responsible for the workers' Social Security and other payroll taxes.

Kaiser Permanente plans to eliminate about 1,200 Northern California jobs due to the tanking economy. The primary areas affected by this most recent slash include "housekeeping, pharmacy techs/clerks, unit assistants, transcription/medical secretaries, health information management clerks and local business offices." The job cuts will effectively remove about 2% of its workforce. The company says it will try to shift cut employees into other positions at Kaiser, but, really, that doesn't seem likely. Kaiser also said "the cuts will not impact the level of service for their patients," or what little left of it there is. Sigh.

SFGate's 'Scavenger' came up with the above handy Google map, denoting the 20 northern California cities with the highest unemployment rates. While it's not a joyous thing to behold, it is interesting to see where we're at right now in the state. The top spots went to #5: Madera (18.5% unemployment), #4: Salinas (18.7%), #3: Yuba City (19.2%), #2: Ceres (19.2%), and #1: Watsonville (24%).

News of Sonoma County’s “Really Goode Job” first hit SFGate on April 28. Since then, hopefuls coveting the $10,000/month, half-year gig for Murphy-Goode have been applying online and uploading videos for consideration for the position. While most of the applicants are from out of state, one of the very few (thus far) Bay Area applicants is SFist contributor Deborah N . While we are, of course, ecstatic of the idea of one of our own winning the grand prize, (yet sad and depressed at the thought of her moving to an albeit free and glamorous house in Healdsburg for six month), we are curious about Deborah’s motivation for applying for the position. (Aside from the fact that we want an SFister to land this oddly, at least according to many MSM outlets, newsworthy job)

Ailing Sunnyvale-based Yahoo Inc. suffered yet another setback this week after "lackluster' first-quarter results were announced. As a result, anywhere from 600 to 700 jobs will be cut. This makes the company's third round of layoffs in over a year. Yahoo product managers, it seems, are most likely to get axed during this round of layoffs. At least so says Chief Executive Carol Bartz who blunted, "We sort of had one product management person for every three engineers, so we had a lot of people running around and telling people what to do, but nobody was doing anything," Yahoo cut more than 2,500 jobs in 2008.

Bob Murray & Associates needs your help, folks. They need to fill a nifty position -- one that could land you a cool $287,000/year, the scorn of overeducated white liberals, all the drunk Valencia Street/Marina whores you can take on, semi-absolute power, and a sexy new uniform. They need to find us a new Police Chief.

Today, the California State Senate "passed legislation that will extend benefits to the unemployed by 20 weeks, sending Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger the first bill involving money from the federal economic stimulus package," according to reports. The bill passed in a 38-0 vote. "The most important thing we can do right now to help our economy and the day-to-day lives of Californians is to make sure those who are unemployed have the cash to pay their bills and feed their families," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. This most recent alteration in California unemployment laws comes just as Google plans to cut part of its workforce.

According to a White House report, "Energy Secretary Steven Chu today offered a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc. to support the company’s construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its proprietary cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels. The company expects to create thousands of new jobs in the U.S. while deploying its solar panels across the U.S. and around the world."

Chipping away at the employment rate in the Bay Area, health corporation Kaiser Permanente plans to eliminate 275 jobs in Walnut Creek, Napa, and Pleasanton as it "restructures its information technology operations." The Oakland-based company will cut 860 jobs nationwide as part of their plan to have IBM mange most of heir data centers.

Sigh. The Sacramento Bee tells AP that they plan on "cutting 128 jobs, or 11 percent of its workforce, as revenue continues to fall in the beleaguered newspaper industry." The death toll by the numbers: 29 jobs in the newsroom, 8 in advertising, 62 in circulation, and 23 in production. Remaining employees face wage cuts and forced vacations too. The Sacramento Bee is owned by Sacramento-based McClatchy Co.

"In the face of a $42 billion budget shortfall, and still no budget, measures are needed to preserve the State’s cash." And with that begins the official layoff letter sent out to 200,000 state workers on Tuesday, notifying them that they "face layoff, demotion in lieu of layoff, or transfer." Arnold made good on his promise to send word out of impending terminations if a budget agreement wasn't reached on Tuesday. It wasn't; he did.

Budget or not, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is all set to send layoff notices (warnings) to 20,000 state workers. According to the Sacramento Bee, "those with the least seniority among the approximately 100,000 state workers employed at General Fund units," will get the notice come tomorrow morning. "In the absence of a budget, the governor has the responsibility to realize savings any way he can," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear, defending Arnold's menacing, mass layoff plan. While he hasn't said exactly how many notices will actually result in layoffs (we going to go ahead and guess most of them), 2,000 layoffs would "save an estimated $150 million, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office."

More grim news from the employed sector. According to the Chronicle (not AP!?), "January's payroll job losses were the steepest one-month decline since the end of 1974 when the nation was battling another deep recession"and the overall U.S. unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent in January, the highest level since September 1992.

Due to the sickly economy, San Francisco-based Williams-Sonoma plans on cutting a whopping 1,400 jobs. The gourmet cookware store -- where you can buy wildly expensive waffle irons, potato ricers, bowls, asparagus steamers, egg timers, frozen lobster souffles, and more -- will make the much-needed cuts by the end of the month, which will save the ailing company an estimated $75 million, according to reports.

In the throes of our failing economy, Google trimmed 100 jobs and close three offices this week. According to reports, 100 full-time recruiters were shown the door. Google also shutdown three engineering offices in Austin (just after it opened "with a lavishly catered party"), Norway and Sweden. Google VP Laszlo Bock announced the layoffs yesterday via his blog, siting "the state of the economy is to blame for the cutbacks." Stay strong, Googlers.

Bank of America (who used to be based in San Francisco) has announced plans to cut anywhere from 30,000 to 35,000 jobs over the next three years. As the company sucks up Merrill Lynch & Co., cuts will affect both BofA and Merrill. "In an effort to lower costs as they face increasing defaults in mortgages, credit card debt and other loans," the (former) banking giant will add these jobs cuts to the thousands that they already eliminated over the past year. In related conspiracy theory, tinfoil hat news: Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges, it seems, the day after he announced all Illinois government agencies to suspend business with Bank of America. Allegedly.

After yesterday's rare appearance before the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced his team's $118 million in proposed "mid-year solutions." Part of said solution will be to eliminate 400 city jobs. While workers will be notified on Friday, they will still be employed by through February 2009. (Hopefully, this will be the start of a budding relationship between the mayor and the Board of Supervisors. Chortle.)

In some more grim news, California's unemployment rate skyrocketed from 7.7 percent in September to 8.2 percent in October. The numbers go like this: the state of California's unemployment numbers are up by 95,000 over the last month (and up by 487,000 compared with October of 2008.) While this is affecting mainly construction and finance jobs, all sectors and any type of employee is taking a hit. A man in line at the Employment Development Department at Franklin and Turk Streets said, "When you're 55 and you're struggling... If I don't make my payments I could lose my house and be out here on the street. I'm one step from that." Sigh. (KCBS)

It was announced today that Washington Mutual , which was shoved under the thumb of federal regulators and sold to JPMorgan Chase in September, will close its Pleasanton campus and eliminate hundreds of San Francisco positions. In total, the former banking giant will eliminate 1,600 Bay Area jobs. The company plans to "cut 400 employees at its operations center at 201 Mission St. in San Francisco early next year," which would leave a paltry 60 workers there until the site shuts down permanently in late 2009. One employee at the SF office said, "It's a shock, but at least it's good and bad. At least we're part of a transition team until next year. It's better than being laid off right now." This comes on the heels of, well, scores of other layoffs hitting the Bay Area this month. (SFGate)

Awful news, everyone! Most Bay Area executives believe that the economy will get worse through 2009. But wait, it gets worse! The Bay Area Council surveyed 509 executives, and the results show that "four out of ten companies plan to cut jobs within six months." What's more, 41 percent of the fat cats also suspect that "the economy will get worse for the next 18 months to three years," predicting economic misfortune going well into the next decade. And while home prices have dramatically plunged across the Bay Area, forecasts like this might mean most of you wading in the middle-class pool won't be able to pay a mortgage anytime soon. In related news, you now need to register in order to post an 'erotic services' ad on Craigslist, and the cocaine retail biz is still a seller's market.

Santa Clara-based Sun announced today that it will lance up to 6,000 jobs. Why? Because Sun's shares have sunk so far that it's "driving the company's market value below its cash on hand." That is to say, investors now think "the company itself is essentially worthless." Due to Sun's eight years of continued financial chaos, Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, and Dell are all currently circling above its near-dead body. Look for the tech giant to be bought out in the very near future. (AP)

Wow. Current TV wasn't the only one hit today. Other SoMa/Mission Bay world-wide-web dabblers also felt the economic pinch.

It was officially announced today that at least 1,500 jobs are set to get cut at Yahoo, which effectively hacks off 10 percent of the Sunnyvale Web portal's staff. This most recent set of layoffs, coupled with the 1,000 jobs eliminated in January, come as the company's third-quarter profit plummeted two thirds to $54.3 million (4 cents per share), from $151.2 million (11 cents per share) over a year ago. Will Microsoft come to the rescue? Again? Stay tuned. (SFGate)

The A's need you help, folks. They are currently seeking a part-time, seasonal Stomper. The Oakland Athletics' mascot is responsible for but not limited to the following:

Employees were offered sweet buyout dealsa at the Chronicle today. The number we're hearing right now is that around 125 (as reports) jobs need to be pruned. Our sources tell us that the reduction will include many employees, though "not a lot [are] expected to be cut from newsroom."

Speaking of our fine mayor, Newsom's recently released budget plan, it seems, will "terminate critical health and human services, while pumping up salaries for police by 25% and adding many new high paid patronage positions into his own administration," at least according to the folks over at something called the People's Budget Collaborative, brought to you by the loopy kids at the Coalition on Homelessness. They claim the following cuts will happen. Ahem:

While he wouldn't say whether or not Cynthia Thompson will receive a much deserved ax, today Mayor Gavin Newsom did announce that he will hack away at some 1,000 city jobs as well as "limiting overtime costs and raising some city fees." Overall, 450 workers stand to lose their jobs. (And thus 450 sandwich artists are born.)