Xilinx cuts 250 jobs.

Saw that.

Wonder if Austin will be along shortly, to claim Xilinx is (once again) leading the pack... ;)

-jg

C'mon, be nice. This is not funny. It's the very first lay-off in the

25-year history of Xilinx. Peter

Profits up by 7% then staff down by 7%. Presumably will be followed by large executive level bonuses. How can your company still be advertising jobs?

Assuming Xilinx doesn't want to reduce the staff even more, it is just some mathematic: 7% for 250 jobs means Xilinx has about 3500 people. If everyone works some 20 years and then go into retirement or changes the job, Xilinx needs about one new employee every two days to keep the staff number at the same level.

Using this calculation, I wonder why they cut the jobs, because not employing new people for about 2 years would have the same result.

--
Frank Buss, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de

e e e

ems.de

Interesting theory, but we first have to get rid of sexual propagation, and institute massive cloning, so that all employees have the same brain cells, and then also receive the same experience and education. Really make them interchangeable. Brave New World... Peter Alfke

OK,

What about the press release did you not get?

We reorganized from a business unit structure, to a functional unit structure.

We recognized the need to be more efficient, and serve our customers better.

Get it?

Better to re-organize when times are good.

It wasn't fun, but in my 13 years in telecom, and my 10 years here at Xilinx, it was the best 'RIF' I have ever seen, done in a fashion which is consistent with Xilinx values, in which respect for the employees is held very dear.

Ever heard of what any of the tel/com/ companies did? Still do?

Yet, Xilinx is a business, and has stockholders: there are certain realities in this world we can not choose to ignore.

I will verify that those who worked for me were excellent people, and if I had a position for them, I would hire them back in an instant.

Austin

snipped-for-privacy@frank-buss.dehttp://www.frank-buss.de,http://www.it4-systems.de

Peter,

There are just some posts that are better left without responses. I think Frank's was one of those.

I have seen layoffs of just 2% of a workforce. Of course, it was followed by more layoffs of 2%, 4% and 5%. But I don't see that happening with the FPGA companies... at least not yet.

Rick

I had a job offer from Xilinx Albuquerque last year. One of the positives touted was the company had never had a layoff. Sorry to see that is no longer true. Good company, products and people. Hopefully this is a one-time thing.

I don't see what was wrong with my post, I just explained why big companies needs new people all the time. And Peter's comment is right: a company can't stop hire people, because if someone like Peter would leave the company, someone from accounting can't replace him.

--
Frank Buss, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de

snipped-for-privacy@frank-buss.dehttp://www.frank-buss.de,http://www.it4-systems.de

I don't think there was anything "wrong" with your post. I just don't think that Peter's response was at all helpful to Xilinx and I don't know that it "needed" a response at all. You stated an observation. Xilinx has its reasons for what it did. Since none of us know what those reasons were, including Peter most likely, there is no point in trying to justify or condemn Xilinx for not meeting our expectations.

I would rather condemn Xilinx for its marketing decisions if anything. They certainly don't meet my expectations there... ;^)

But to your argument, I don't agree. It is very often that a company will simply put out a hiring freeze rather than a layoff, partly because it is much cheaper! Layoffs mean an immediate reduction in paychecks, but at the expense of several weeks of severance pay and potentially higher unemployment insurance rates. A hiring freeze costs next to nothing and does allow for filling positions that are the exception. Let's face it, this is not the government, they will do what makes the most sense to them including violating their own rules if needed.

Although you can't replace Peter with someone from accounting (at least we can assume that) I am sure that Xilinx has any number of good engineers who *can* take over his duties. Yes, I expect there will be some loss of productivity in the company overall, but that is the goal, to reduce productivity (as little as possible) to bring expenses in line with expected revenue.

If I had to guess, I would say that the layoffs were not in reaction to a bad quarter, but because of the darkening clouds on the horizon of coming quarters. A company can always ride out a single quarter or even a single year. It is the long term perspective that causes layoffs.

Perhaps Xilinx senses a change of sea state... a new paradigm coming?

Rick

Three, four, and five are the most repulsive *excuses* for a layoff I have ever heard! ...and two is close.

--
Keith

(my first ability to post today)

Your conjecture is opinion that may be closer or further from the truth for any and all cuts in work force. While all are welcome to their opinion, it's sometimes hurtful to comment about the possible reasons with ABSOLUTELY no knowledge of the reasoning behind the cuts. This applies to many recent posters.

The nature of publicly traded companies (and perhaps the capitalist system in general) results in cuts in work force under certain market conditions whether it's Xilinx, GM, or your neighborhood grocery store. Ugly truth.

Talking about why we think this unfortunate turn occurred does nobody any justice. I was fortunate to leave my previous company before their "first ever" job cuts. I've been present while Voluntary Reductions in Force (VRIF) claim many veterans I've known and seen a RIF sincerely affect the moral of the groups subjected to this involuntary form. Reductions come for reasons that are rarely obvious to those affected directly.

It's toughest for the employees who care deeply for their company and their coworkers. My heart goes out to those who are dealing with the agony or angst that comes with such a huge change.

In the end - if done right - job cuts in general may help to improve the company in the long run. The short term can simply hurt, especially for those who are cut or work directly with those who lost their jobs.

- John_H

I've seen that as well, but to a smaller extent than to morale.

You noticed I had a typo. Damn those decades of English education!

I have never heard this before. Where did you get this info? I would expect just the opposite. New hires are very unproductive for some period of time while they adjust to the unique methods of a different company and they learn all of the corporate culture. I am always amazed at how much of the knowledge in a company is passed on by oral tradition. If you shipped off all of the current employees and replaced them with new, most companies would cease to exist. Maybe that is a bit extreme, but I know of a company that had more than half the employees with less than 1 year of tenure. It was a real cluster

****. No one knew anything for sure and it always took way too long to get anything done because it was always pulled in 10 different directions from no one knowing what to expect from the others.

I don't agree with this either. Most "new" ideas are not brought with people, they are created in response to the need of a situation. If your statement were true, then all those people fired would be bringing "new" ideas to the next companies they joined.

Yes, that is a valid point. Surely Austin can't do the work of the people laid off around him, but the work that doesn't get done is likely less of an impact on the company than the dollars saved... at least in the short term. In the long run, this sort of thinking can cause the loss of customers and lowered revenues.

Rick

If it matters, I was responding to the unintended irony. No offense or slight intended.

I can think of a few obvious reasons why Xilinx would fire and hire at the same time. One, they probably cleared-out some of the middle management fluff that comes with a company of Xilinx's size. This would explain why they are still trying to hire for technical positions. Two, new hires tend to be cheaper than veteran employees are. Three, new hires, on AVERAGE, are more productive than more established employees. Four, new people bring new ideas; Xilinx already has the good ideas from the people they fired. Five, firing can be used to eliminate the replication of ideas and services provided by a company's work force. Why does Austin need x employees who only know a strict subset of what he knows? He may have to do more work, but the company should save money in the end.

---Matthew Hicks

I knew my statements would be contentious due to their brashness. In the real world, it's not that simple, and my comments really pertain to companies in the growth (R&D) phase. A company keeps its most experienced people around to teach and lead the new hires. That way, stuff gets done and ideas flow from the top directly to the bottom (no middle-men to muddle things up). Yes, a company will have reduced productivity for a couple of months, but will have an overall increased productivity in the long term. All at a lower cost, leading to increased profits. Doing this also allows for a change of "corporate culture", if required. After a few months, the new hires will be at the same place in current projects that the fired employees were. The difference is new hires, generally younger, have more time to put into the job and feel they have more to prove, and hence work harder. More established workers, generally, have families and a sense of entitlement. This means they tend to work less (and less efficiently), have other stuff to think about than their work problems, and aren't motivated to expand their knowledge base.

In my work interning and consulting, I've found that I can get up to speed on the culture, tools, development process, etc. in less than three months. I also found that longer-term workers spent more time not working (talking, internet, ...) and were less likely to adopt new design processes or learn new technologies. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, ala Peter and Austin, but I'm mainly writing about mid-level workers.

Lost revenues aren't necessarily bad. If it costs a company more money than it makes to get the revenue, lose the revenues and gain the net profit.

All of this is the beauty of the capitalist system, it's too bad most CEOs and government leaders doesn't understand how to use it. If done right, in the end, the layoffs will be good for not only the company but for those fired. If forces both the company and those fired to re-evaluate their position in the market, resulting in better products and more motivated, possibly better trained employees.

---Matthew Hicks

So Jim wasn't too far off then.