Telecom, IT Layoff Tracker: CenturyLink, Brocade, HPE, More

CenturyLink

CenturyLink last month confirmed it is laying off more than 150 employees after the recent close of its $34 billion acquisition of Level 3 Communications.

About 165 employees are being impacted by the layoffs, including 37 in Louisiana, where the company is based. CenturyLink announced the completion of the merger on Nov. 1.

“As a result of our acquisition of Level 3, our customers, from individual consumers to global enterprises, benefit from our expanded, innovative network solutions and our complementary managed services,” said CenturyLink spokesman Mark Molzen. “The combination of the two companies also has meant that we must eliminate redundant positions. As a result, we are eliminating IT positions in product development and technology.”

With Level 3, CenturyLink has 52,500 employees. It previously had 40,000 people on staff.

Brocade

Hundreds of Brocade Communications Systems employees got some grim news smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. They're losing their jobs next month.

The layoffs in San Jose, California, are a result of Broadcom‘s $5.9 billion acquisition of Brocade, which was completed last month. Brocade will operate as an indirect subsidiary of Broadcom and will be led by Jack Rondoni, previously Brocade’s senior vice president of storage networking.

According to the report Broadcom filed with the California Employment Development Department, 308 workers will lose their jobs in San Jose, with the first workers leaving Jan. 19. Broadcom isn’t closing any facilities and certain employees were selected for layoffs.

HPE

In September, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) reportedly was planning to cut thousands from its workforce as part of a strategy to reduce expenses.

The company planned to shed 10 percent of its employees, or at least 5,000 workers, “people familiar with the matter” told Bloomberg. The cuts were to start before the end of the year and are likely to impact workers in the United States and other countries, they said. The company has about 50,000 workers.

HPE has gone through big changes since CEO Meg Whitman began cutting divisions in 2015. Personal computers, printers, business services and software units all have been reduced in an effort to compete with cloud providers like Amazon and Google.

Citrix

In October, Citrix confirmed it is laying off workers globally as part of its accelerating transformation to a subscription/cloud-based business model, and to invest in high-growth initiatives.

Citrix spokesman Eric Armstrong said notifications were going out globally and “out of respect for those impacted, we are not sharing the number of impacted employees globally or in any specific location.” Citrix has 8,000 employees.

“It is anticipated that the shift to the cloud will only pick up speed, and to accomplish the company’s goals, Citrix is rebalancing investments and winding down certain products,” Armstrong said. “These actions include Octoblu (a Citrix Internet of Things (IoT) messaging and automation platform) to focus development efforts on building IoT solutions atop widely used IoT platforms, and Right Signature, which will become a feature of ShareFile Enterprise.”

Oracle

Oracle reportedly planned to slash hundreds of jobs globally, including more than 950 jobs in its Santa Clara, California, facility.

In an Aug. 31 notice filed with the California Employment Development Department, Oracle said all affected employees have been notified and the terminations were expected to occur on Oct. 31. The Santa Clara facility isn’t closing as part of the layoffs, it said.

Posts on thelayoff.com said up to 2,500 Oracle employees around the world were affected by the cuts. In addition to Santa Clara, Oracle reportedly cut positions in San Diego, Austin, Massachusetts, Colorado and India.

Tax Reform to Help?

After a year impacted by hurricanes, fires and political uncertainty, the IT job market is anticipated to grow by 80,000-100,000 new positions in 2018, according to Janco Associates’ latest market analysis.

“With the looming passage of the tax reform bill and the finalization of 2018 budgets, prospects look brighter for all IT professionals except for those focused on the telecommunication disciplines,” said Victor Janulaitis, Janco’s CEO. “Natural disasters have a short-term negative impact on IT job market growth, but that typically recovers within 30-90 days. On the other hand, political uncertainty has a much more lasting negative impact. In our opinion, political uncertainty was the primary driver for the sluggish growth of the IT job market in 2017. With the passage of the tax reform bill, trillions of dollars will be repatriated to the U.S and will be invested in this economy. That will result in the need for better technology infrastructure — meaning more new technology jobs.”