As Finnish cell phone giant Nokia continues to cut costs in an effort to combat declining demand, the company recently told Reuters it would shed an additional 490 jobs in the near future. 170 employees from Nokia’s logistics, production management and production support divisions will be released and the company will extend its Voluntary Resignation Package to 320 workers at its Salo facility. Nokia had already implemented a temporary layoff schedule at its plant in Salo, but apparently the measure was...

What’s this, you say? News of a major retailer doing better than expected despite the tough economic times? We know, we know. It’s hard to believe, but some folks are weathering the economy’s downturn better than the media would have you believe. According to Amazon’s Q4 report from 2008, the company did pretty well during the oh-so-important holiday sales season. Amazon posted a net sales increase of 18% to $6.7 billion, with net income shooting up 9% to $225 million. Not so bad, espe...

It’s no secret that 2008 wasn’t kind to most major corporations around the world. Unfortunately, as the year-end reports have been trickling in over the last couple of days, we’ve gotten a healthy look at just how bad many of our favorites fared. While T-Mobile has yet to release their actual financials, we’ll have to wait until the 27th of February for that pleasure, the company has gone ahead and released its subscriber stats for the 4th Quarter of 2008. During Q4 the company added 6...

First things first: 1.9 million activations is nothing to scoff at. It’s a huge number, and represents AT&T and Apple’s unquestionable success in the smartphone arena. Including the 4th Quarter results, the company can claim 4.3 million total iPhone activations since the introduction of the iPhone 3G, an impressive number by anyone’s standards and a certain earmark of Apple and AT&T’s continuing dominance in the consumer market. The company also revealed, somewhat cryptically, ...

Contrary to popular belief, the mighty force that is the Google empire is not exactly recession proof. The company announced yesterday that it was laying off roughly 100 employees and making some pretty significant “alterations” to its product offerings. None of the major Google services (Gmail, Google Docs, etc) were affected, but a number of minor Google products have been relegated to a virtual death row sentence. Jaiku is being shifted to the Google App Engine, which essentially means that the...

Saturn’s slogan is now “Rethink”, but it’s beginning to look like the GM-owned automaker is taking that sentiment in a completely different direction. After making an effort to rebrand the Saturn line and produce a variety of attractive vehicles, General Motors might pull the plug on the 23-year-old auto line. With rumors of bankruptcies and dealers going out of business (none of which were true), Saturn’s reputation has been taking some serious hits lately. It’s also no he...

Regardless of how large, powerful and influential a company is, no one is recession-proof. Internet search giant Google has been laying off employees since this summer, and it has been doing so under the news radar for the most part. The SEC requires companies to disclose information regarding layoffs but apparently Google had slipped around the rule and reported its Q3 earnings as expected by saying it had cut down on “operational expenses”. Though Google officially has 20,123 employees, there ar...

If you ran a very large company hurting a little in the midst of an economic crisis, what would you do? Well, Dell has the solution for all your woes and conundrums. Step one – encourage your employees to take up to five days of vacation time! The key thing to remember here is to not stress the fact that they will not be getting paid for the time off. You wouldn’t want to spoil the vacation by reminding them that they could be working and earning money instead. Step two – encourage employees...

If you thought breaking up over a text message was in bad taste, try empathizing with the Tesla employees who were just laid off… via a blog post! That’s right, 90% of the Tesla team in Metro Detroit were let go, but someone assigned to break the news didn’t have the guts to tell them. Instead, the employees found out through their own site that they were finished. What’s to become of the remaining 10%? Those who aren’t notified of their termination today (via a bulletin board at...

You don’t need a fancy masters degree in economics from Oxford to know that America is in a recession; all you need to do is look at what electronics are selling the best and you’ll have a pretty good snap shot of how much disposable income people have. And while it feels like everyone and their momma has at one time or another ran out to buy the hottest 3G devices they could find, the results are in and RAZR V3 is still the top selling phone in America. Sure, you could try and make yourself feel ...