That they fire 259 people the week before Labor Day, the day the country celebrates the working population.
A little insensitive, no? Unnecessarily cruel? But I guess when you have millions you don’t need a sensitivity chip. Read the room Penny.
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@at preferably never, but mass layoffs should be a measure of last resort to keep the company from going under. They are now far too common that we normalize this behavior even though these never exhausted prior to Milton Friedman and his shareholder supremacy philosophy that arose in 1980. But this instance of mass layoffs did not occur in a business that is no longer profitable. It occurred during a period of record revenue after a suite of executive outsiders decided to pilfer and plunder after being at the company less than 3 years. Edward Jones has consistently preached how they are different from every other firm, how people come first, and they are a culture where revenue will take care of itself. These executives saw dollar signs instead of heartbeats with families to feed. I will continually stress that there were so many alternatives to the sledgehammer approach these foreigners took. Stop hiring when people leave or retire, slowly offshore when those jobs can be mapped elsewhere, up-skill your existing workforce so their skills can be used in the roles of the future, and understand the specific strengths and skills of your employees so they can immediately begin working on these reimagined roles of the digital future. Forcing a pay cut on an undisclosed number of employees tells you all you need to know. This was greed, plain and simple. The worst part is they did this to themselves. The employees at EJ own the firm. There are no external constituents demanding that record profits be exponentially increased. These executives were making an exorbitant amount of money and decided to take money from their subordinates. They desecrated a culture of putting others before yourself and they became like the Wall Street banks that they came from. Layoffs, particularly mass layoffs, have a place in business during times of catastrophe. A company that has touted the fact that they’ve never conducted mass layoffs is a textbook example of hypocrisy. May these people choke on the kool-aid they’ve been spewing since their arrival. If you want to get rid of immigrants, start with these soulless rats and their multiple mansions.
It was a lot more than 259 people. Those are just the people they immediately walked out the door. The number is much larger if you include people with 1 or more weeks remaining. Plus they won’t disclose how many people they stole from (ie lovingly decided to pay them less for the same job). It’s hard to imagine how paying people less creates more efficiency and a streamlined business model.
So, when is a good time for layoffs? Keep squinting to find more to complain about.