Thread regarding AES Corp. layoffs

The extra $150 million would be the full realization of these layoffs. They are still paying severance for those employees through this summer, so only get a half year of cost savings. Next year would be a full year of those same savings.

On the earnings call they said ~$150 million in costs reduced this year (which is the rough cost savings of laying off 10% of the workforce plus some other low hanging fruit), and that they plan to ramp this up to $300 million in savings through 2026. I'd expect the bulk of the extra $150 million will likely also be another 10% of the company towards the end of 2025 or early 2026 (or perhaps this extra $150 million is just the continued cost savings from cuts already made, along with belt tigthening and attrition). But I suspect there will be more layoffs, especially if the IRA tax credits go away. To all my amazing colleagues who got let go, just know you are valued and talented and will be welcomed in many other energy companies that are being run much better than AES.

It definitely seems like they miscalibrated writing off/selling out of some coal/gas from early on, which seemed to be in pursuit of attempts to be included in ESG index funds, but were late to the party and for some reason pursued this over simple and sound financial sense and judiciousness of existing assets and shareholders.

"Build trust and break down silos" has been the the cooperate directive to utility leadership for over the past year. What an embarrassment. The real strategy is to eliminate people who remember what it was like before aes. Some of the most respected and knowledgeable people in our Company are gone, leaving young emerging managers/leaders to rethink investing their talents here. They will bring in all their cronies from South America to "right the ship" and run the company to the ground. Tough times are ahead.

To potential future employees, AES laid off ~10% of it's workforce on 02/27/2025. It's my understanding the layoffs were spread around, but many departments were impacted. Leadership has placed the responsibility of this outcome on the November 2024 election, stating "Elections have consequences".

There was no mention of overspending due, in part, to overreliance on government subsidies (Inflation Reduction Act).
No mention of poor strategic decisions like investing heavily in a renewables, which makes up ~4.5% of global energy production, while closing, selling, or divesting fossil fuel plants. Or poor procurement strategies.
No mention of the lack of planning because leadership was positive of the 2024 U.S. election results.
No blame for the lack of accountability. No blame for incessant managing up...because of the lack of accountability. No blame for unnecessary redundancy. No blame for emotional decision making.

Many employees know this, but this is not a culture of honesty. Since core issues are not addressed, this will happen again at some point...

It's unfortunate that good personnel suffer the consequences of poor leadership. But this IS what happens in corporations. Understand going further, Corporate Leadership DOES NOT care about you. Employment is a transaction for services rendered. Find fulfillment in your family, friends, and hobbies.

To the vast majority of those that were impacted, it's not a reflection of your performance. I hope this situation turns out to be a net positive for you.

The earnings released this morning look quite good… does not explain the need for mass layoffs

Email yesterday from AES CEO Andres Gluski states "elections have consequences" and that "changes must be made because our share price has fallen 50%." Well, this is obvious but not taking accountability and then blaming the election within the first paragraph of the email is sheer cowardice. It is AES' obsession with "clean energy" which landed us here.

To all the GC’s out there currently contracted in AES projects. Watch your payment schedules. The amount of poor decisions being made is staggering and unsustainable. Don't play games this company. You will get burned.

“Elections have consequences”. Oh please, you really think we are d-mb enough to shrug our shoulders with you and chalk it all up to unforeseen governmental policy chokeholds, instead of the glaring fact that our ELT has a lead foot speeding towards the renewables Valhalla? How elementary is it to understand that leveraging your financial dependencies on who’s occupying the state house and Oval Office is clearly not the way to go about things? Hundreds and hundreds of innocent individuals died on the cross for the corporation’s inept, woke, and ego-driven self righteousness today. Pat yourself on the back for me. The utilities may not have taken the biggest personnel hit, but we have slowly but surely been gentrified to a pulp over the last 25 years. It would be an absolute blessing for the corporation to be tricked into thinking you can somehow survive without our revenue, and sell us off so we can finally be free from any further transgressions. We want nothing to do with you.

The CEO sent an email basically blaming the current elected officials for being forced to make this decision. So instead of being accountable and owning this, they blame Trump? Ha. Terrible leadership.

Laid off from clean energy. Got an email invite from “leadership” asking several of us if we were free in one minute for a quick call so he could let us go. The way this was handled and how “leadership” fumbled the RTO announcement is embarrassing. Then they sent the people who just got let go invites to join the multiple calls on Friday to hear about the future of the company like we now care. Go fly a kite.

To those we lost in the layoffs today: this is not a reflection of your amazing skills, talents, or performance. This was a terrible business decision that was completely out of your control. Your next organization is going to gain a phenomenal employee, and it will be AES's loss. You will all be dearly missed.

We were told by a VP that there weren't plans for any more at this time but honestly who knows.

Would there be a second round of layoffs?

Apparently 10% of the entire workforce was “reduced” today. Still not a peep from any leadership. Vibes are in the toilet.

At least a few layoffs at AES Ohio today. Mood was off.

To the "high level exec on the board", in regards to layoffs coming in summer 2025, are you talking about Petersburg? They aren't even done with gasification yet.

What about our annual bonus? Will we get it along with severance?

Laid off in renewables. I was told business decision and many more across the entire business would be laid off in the next 48 hours. Fair severance. Best of luck to all who will be looking for work in the next few months.

The axe came today! Lots and lots of leadership and high paid staffers were terminated across Ohio and Indiana.

Laid off in Renewables

Laid off in renewables, decent severance, was told 30% of AES being affected

Renewables has not been left in tact... layoffs here as well

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, 1000 people will be let go from AES. Most have come from US Services - Digital and the IBU. The "golden child" of Renewable Energy US that has wasted frivolously the corporate money has been left intact. Reading through the comments, if the person was a board member, it is nice to know they are openly dishonest they are.

I also heard that it will be tomorrow ahead of the earnings call. Mostly utility folks in Indiana, construction, and development.

Any idea how large the layoffs will be?

Heard it’s tomorrow

Will layoffs be happening before or after Friday's earnings call?

As a high level executive in the AES board, I can assure you that layoffs are coming in the summer of 2025. While these layoffs will include company personal, their main focus will be returning the union work force to compatible with the current work load of our Indiana utilities following the curtailment of 50% of the required manpower. You’ve been warned, seek employment elsewhere now. There will be no severance for collective bargaining unit personnel

Heard layoffs are supposed to happen next week. Any information on this?

Hopefully the layoffs include middle management. So many people are getting paid to do nothing. The lack of leadership and knowledge is running certain departments into the ground. Unfortunately senior leadership is blind to what is going on around the company as all middle management deflects and points fingers at others rather than do their jobs and fix the mess they have created. It is a horribly hostile work environment currently and is becoming worse each day.

Layoffs will begin mid February from what was told to us. Estimates are between 2k to 3k people across clean energy and all the utilities.

AES executive leadership remains unchanged and due to poor business decisions, another round of layoffs is imminent. This will be the third round of significant layoffs by AES yet still no change to the leaders that make poor decisions that trigger the need to layoff. Leave if you can and do not apply for a job here as this a reoccurring trend with this company unfortunately.

Agreed, layoffs are definitely coming. AES is in financial trouble due to horrible management and bad investments. Get out before you’re forced out.

The RTO mandate is going to push lots of people out the door. This move by the incompetent executives is their attempt to save face and prevent layoffs. They need a clean flush of VP level & up, but it's not happening.

Yes. Layoffs are incoming. Also company is now going back to work 5 days a week.

Potentially. They just called everyone back to the office Mon-Fri. Layoffs are probably next.