Reporter doing research on AT&T IT layoffs. Need some context. Have you trained an H-1B replacement worker? If so, who was the vendor? And what was the location city? (I could post my contact but that will only let AT&T know who is working on this, and no one here will trust the info. But if you folks want the wider world to know about what's going on -- and if the shift overseas is as bad I think it might be -- then leave some breadcrumbs to help with the research. Figure it out.
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I agree. I was involved in a consolidation in 3rd quarter 2010. Workers were being trained in India to take over our jobs. In the meantime, AT&T chose to consolidate to a location that was not close enough to commute. Most employees in my department had well over 30 yrs service and were over 40.
AT&T Celebrates Its Fifteenth Anniversary in Slovakia
Bratislava, Dec. 11 2014 – Fifteen years ago, AT&T* launched its business operations in Slovakia with only a few dozen employees. Today, it runs four centres in two different cities, employing a workforce of more than three thousand.
Designing a networking solution, securing the provision of required equipment and supervising all installation processes in different countries of the world are some of the tasks that AT&T employees in Slovakia manage. AT&T is an industry leader in serving large business customers, including multi-national companies on six continents.
That service is also what the growing trend of gradually expanding M2M technologies and the increasing need to make them communicate with one another is all about. “Our network will evolve. Our traffic will be increasingly video-based. Storage and computing will be virtualized. Our customer expectations also will change as they expand globally, driven by their requirements for mobility, security, and virtualisation,” explains Eric Loeb, AT&T’s Vice-President for International External Affairs.
“When we were launching our first subsidiary in Slovakia in 1999, we did not expect that we could have thousands of employees in Slovakia one day. The professionalism, drive, dedication and cooperative spirit of our team colleagues here are what our customers appreciate,” says Eric Loeb. “We are convinced that we will continue to implement a great many interesting projects with our Slovak colleagues,” he add
The folks who are in Mike Hargrove's group think it wont be too bad for them. 2016 will be a year of regrouping and movement of groups to new directors. The movements will be looked upon as a way to save people but in reality it's only a way to slide people to areas where they can be checked to see the impact of layoff or complete removal of the team. The IT people under Shull thought they were safe until the H1b people took their jobs. the initial information was the workload was high and help was needed. They were asked to help they new people to assist. Surprise surprise. they were replacements not added help. When the bottom line is cost and the H1b's are 1/5 of the cost guess where it's going.
Try to find out when the groups are doing downsizing. You will see nothing. If you know someone in the group then you will know otherwise never.
Look at the AM's being moved around in the group. you will see a pattern. Sadly they wont...yet.
I think that we do not abuse #H1B visas like some other companies
From an IT/Operations perspective I think it is mostly offshoring. This is cheaper than outsourcing or abusing the H1-B visa. They are hiring a lot of employees in Brno, Bratislava and Bangalore (lots of Bs) for 10-30 cents on the dollar what they'd pay a domestic IT worker. I haven't heard of any H-1B abuse. It is mostly a domestic team absorbing a bunch of new team members overseas. Hiring freezes domestically and hiring increases for international workers. So, eventually, much of the domestic IT staff is offshored through attrition. Without the bad press of mass layoffs.
Most of the outsourcing occurs on software development related projects. We pay Accenture or TechM for their code monkeys in India. Those companies do abuse the H1-B system for their imported workers. That is their business model, they do the illegal stuff so their customers don't have to.
I don't think AT&T is doing anything illegal with the outsourcing and offshoring. It is just unsavory.
The real scandal is targeted layoffs for older domestic workers to minimize future pension obligations. My org, under Mike Hargrove, had only about a 2% layoff this summer, but everyone I knew that got laid off was a long tenured employee over 40. From what I hear, supervisors had no say in who got the axe. It was completely up to HR, which tells you that job performance was not part of the equation.
I bet if laid off folks start posting their age and tenure, you will see a pattern.
All the people tat were cut in 2015, that I knew , were almost filthy or older and had an average of 20 years with the company, to-date I have not seen any millennial employee packing their bags
It's not just IT, they outsourced supply chain functions and buyers too, and yes.... All over 40.
You got it - 60s and fifteen years.
From an IT/Operations perspective I think it is mostly offshoring. This is cheaper than outsourcing or abusing the H1-B visa. They are hiring a lot of employees in Brno, Bratislava and Bangalore (lots of Bs) for 10-30 cents on the dollar what they'd pay a domestic IT worker. I haven't heard of any H-1B abuse. It is mostly a domestic team absorbing a bunch of new team members overseas. Hiring freezes domestically and hiring increases for international workers. So, eventually, much of the domestic IT staff is offshored through attrition. Without the bad press of mass layoffs.
Most of the outsourcing occurs on software development related projects. We pay Accenture or TechM for their code monkeys in India. Those companies do abuse the H1-B system for their imported workers. That is their business model, they do the illegal stuff so their customers don't have to.
I don't think AT&T is doing anything illegal with the outsourcing and offshoring. It is just unsavory.
The real scandal is targeted layoffs for older domestic workers to minimize future pension obligations. My org, under Mike Hargrove, had only about a 2% layoff this summer, but everyone I knew that got laid off was a long tenured employee over 40. From what I hear, supervisors had no say in who got the axe. It was completely up to HR, which tells you that job performance was not part of the equation.
I bet if laid off folks start posting their age and tenure, you will see a pattern.
Amdocs, Tech Mahindra, Accenture
NB Ventures Inc is one of the contracting firms.
Google ATT jobs...loads in Bratislava, Bangalore, Hyderbad