Home Depot Announces Corporate Job Layoffs

[UpInArms]

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/2843523/detail.html

ATLANTA -- The Home Depot plans to cut up to 100 jobs in its finance division as part of a streamlining effort, the company said Thursday.

The cuts, to be completed by April, will occur at the company's Atlanta headquarters, which has 5,000 employees, spokesman Jerry Shields said.

The cuts are being made because the company's financial operations group, which includes payables and operations support, is being reorganized, Home Depot said.

...more...

[brokensymmetry]

1. Reorganized?

Or is this just a prelude to outsourced? Not that they'd ever admit it...

[Sugarbleus]

3. Don't ya just love the choice words they use for

YOU'ER SCREWED

[PROGRESSIVE1]

2. Those 100 "laidoff jobs" are going to....

A)India
B)China
C)Indonesia
D)All of the above

I'd pick D if I we're you.

[Thor_MN]

7. You forgot E) Computers...

Home Depot is pushing EDI, which let it communicate with it's vendors electonically. Payables become people saying yes process this invoice rather than shuffling paper, hand keying invoices, etc. More productivity, fewer people in A/P....

[jmowreader]

9. Hey, someone else gets it!

We've had EDI for a long time--every large retailer has--but now we're getting serious about it.

I think this will be a good thing, not a bad; those hundred jobs that are disappearing from SSC are the absolutely shittiest jobs in the whole system. If they can turn those folks from invoice-entry clerks into something more useful, it will be better for us all.

[KoKo]

4. Something wrong in our "strong housing market?" This doesn't sound good.

They are telling us folks are into Housing Big Time...and folks are using Home Equity Loans to buy either McMansions or to do "Upgrades" in their current homes.

Methinks the refi and "home equities" might be going to pay the bills and health care for folks out here. Elsewise, why would Home Depot be "cutting back." One more fact to push against the BIG LIE of the Healthy/Happy Economy just steamrolling along with folks spending, spending, spending, and buying, buying, buying all in the "Housing Market." :eyes:

[brokensymmetry]

5. You're right!

People are using those refinances just to maintain their lifestyle. And what's going to happen to those who are nearing or at retirement...and their 401K wouldn't pay for dinner...and their house has been mortgaged beyond its market value...and they're too sick to work?

What then? I truly wonder what the "compassionate conservatives" will do then. Maybe I don't want to know...

[Voltaire99]

8. Two words: land grab (n/t)

[nolabels]

14. They are or were partly under a wing of a GE finance system

I think they are having to get their costs in line to make more profit and keep up with the compatition like Loews. The new Home Depot near my house is a cross-hybrid imploying Wall-Mart and Loews store setup and product display. They also have some self checkout lines they are experimenting with.

It's also a tricky mix to get contruction contractors and consumers in the same store.

[jmowreader]

6. They're not cutting headcount

Note: this isn't an official position paper from my employer...

They are doing a redistribution of human assets. Fancy business-ese for "your desk is in the warehouse, go work for Joe down in the Lighting Department buyer's office."

Every store in the Home Depot system has a back office with a minimum of three accountants and three mainframe system operators; Home Depot policy is that one of each must be on duty at all times when the store is open. Some really large stores have more of one category or the other, or both.

Will they outsource the 100 slots to India? Possible; doubtful, because they should be done with the financial systems upgrade by then. It will require fewer people to run it in Atlanta because data from the stores will be entered into the great orange computer in the sky from store level; right now, if you do a travel voucher, your store puts the paper document in an express mail envelope and sends it to Atlanta, where some poor schmuck making $10 an hour punches it in. By filling out a form on a computer in the back of the store instead of sending paper to Atlanta in an envelope, it cuts headcount on Paces Ferry Road without damaging our operations. Oh, and it cuts down on the amount of express mail we send, which will be nice too. 1650 stores times 260 envelopes per year times $14 per envelope equals more money than I want to think about.

Can you dissipate 100 people in a company that has 370,000 employees and 1800 workplaces (counting all of the different store brands we run, distribution centers, transit facilities, store support groups, store support centers, buying offices...)? Easily.

"But...but...but...what if they can't afford to move?" Easy. If Home Depot moves you because Home Depot needs you someplace else, Home Depot pays your relocation expenses. They will hire the best realtor in the area to sell your house for you, unless you're moving to become a store manager or above; in that case, they just buy your house from you for fair market value and sell it themselves. And when you move, you don't go into a lesser position or a lesser paygrade; these 100 finance people will not wake up to find their names on the Lot Associate schedule. They'll either be in the back office, they'll be expeditors, or they'll be put on the management track.

I know where I'd put 'em--in the product merchant departments. We need more product merchants--our name for buyers. In my departments (lumber, building materials and millwork) we need about twice as many product merchants.

[Insider]

10. bush visited Home Depot in Baltimore

recently (dec? jan?). funny that the so many of the places he visits end up cutting employees, or getting their funding cut. home depot is supposedly a big repub donor, which is why they said he came to the store in baltimore.

searching for those photos, but did he have JOBS & ECONOMIC GROWTH signs behind him then? that would be a hoot, wouldn't it?

edit:
from whitehouse.gov "strengthening america's economy" backdrop
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/images/20031205-4_img1850jpg-515h.html

[Insider]

11. Jobs & Economic Growth

--snip--
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 5, 2003

President's Remarks

President Bush Discusses the Economy at the Home Depot in Maryland
Remarks by the President in a Conversation on the Economy with Employers and Employees
The Home Depot
Halethorpe, Maryland

In Focus: Economic Security

1:20 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, all. I left my credit card at home. (Laughter.) Thanks for having me. I'm honored to be here at a great company. I really appreciate the spirit of the company; I appreciate the fact that this company cares about the people who work here. And that's really what we're here to talk about, is people working and realizing their dream. I want people working in the country.
--snip--
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031205-4.html

[dbt]

12. Where's the fookin recovery then?

Seems like the Boy King tells us all the time how he's all about creating jobs; thirty seconds after the sound bite, another giant corp decides to do some more downsizing/outsourcing.

Is there a pattern developing here or what?

:wtf:
dbt

[jmowreader]

13. What have you people been smoking?

This is 100 shit jobs, presently held by people who will be reassigned to other places in the company, in a firm that employs 350,000 people and will be adding about 25,000 positions this year just in new stores--most of them full-time.

I already explained why those jobs are going away: the data entry functions they do are being "outsourced" to the stores instead of being done in Atlanta. It's part of the $1 billion-plus IT upgrade we're doing. (The Millwork Quoting System upgrade is still forthcoming...)

This is one of the few large firms in America that really does take care of its workers. We are not Wal-Mart.

[kwolf68]

15. I like Home Depot

Home Depot works hard to make sure none of their wood is from endangered lands.

I hate big business as much as the next guy, but Home Depot has been doing it right. Trust me, I know.

The fact they are cutting jobs is devestating, but it isn't because they are a shitty company.

[nolabels]

16. They probably added that many jobs in just the couple of new stores

they built out here in So Cal since the start of the year.