Tech industries are the newest victims of the Cyber-era. Over 100,000 jobs lost in the last few

[CK_John]

weeks to what, robots.

Warning to pharmacy workers, this area will become as rare as travel agents when pill dropping atm's start showing up at your favorite shopping mecca.

Soc Sec age needs to be lowered to at least age 50.

Latest announcement link.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/10/08/telecoms-firm-alcatel-lucent-job-cuts/2942129/

[kentauros]

1. Robots still have to be designed, proto-typed, and maintained by humans.

Robots aren't advanced enough yet to do any of that, and all of the above require a technical background and/or training.

What we need sorely in this country is either a law to force corporations to retrain people after layoffs, or subsidize that same training for anyone laid off, no matter what their former income level.

[Jim__]

2. Your link goes to a story about a single telecom firm losing 10,000 jobs.

Is there a story on the 100,000 jobs lost in the last few weeks? Or is that an extrapolation?

[CK_John]

3. GE announced 2000 last few weeks. IBM made job loss announcements, check the business press.

It's not 100,000 at one firm but at a collective including RIM and Itel, AMD.

[Myrina]

4. I work in IT and what I don't get, truly ...

.... is why we all have to show up in cubeland every day.
Everything we do is virtual - meetings via IM and polycom, desktop sharing for training, coding and QA/UAT.
We have 4 people "remote" - 2 in India, 1 in Ohio and 1 in Upstate NY.
We have our migrations at 10pm on Thursday nights, everyone dials/webby's into -- so why can't we work from home the rest of the week?

I truly, truly don't understand that.

Our culture needs to change - not only on the 'work from home', but also what constitutes 'full time'. Many countries in Europe have 4 day work weeks, with 6-8 weeks paid vacation/yr. The pressure to 'earn tha bling' is alot less, the quality of life is better. Workers are happier and probably more loyal and productive.

Why doesn't America see that??

[CK_John]

5. It's easy they can't see you sweat.

[Myrina]

6. Well, to be honest ...

.... this place suffered a HUGE downsizing several years ago so the compound is 2/3 empty ... most days the only other humans I see are the receptionist & the folks working the cafeteria. I joke to my friends that I could come in wearing sweatshorts and slippers & nobody would know.

Most weeks I see my boss & 'team mates' for 30 minutes. I wouldn't know any of the execs if they walked up to me & slapped me. In fact, I've probably flipped some of them off in the parking lot because they drive & park like assholes.