By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer

BOSTON - IBM Corp. laid off 1,570 people Wednesday, primarily from an ongoing overhaul of operations in its giant technology services unit.

The company carried out a similar level of job cuts at the beginning of the month, for a total of 3,023 in this quarter and 3,720 for the year, according to IBM spokesman Edward Barbini.

That amounts to roughly 1 percent of the company, which employed 355,000 people at the beginning of the year. But even these small numbers reflect a big project inside IBM to transform its business.

Services is IBM’s biggest division by revenue, but the advent of lower-cost competition overseas has forced IBM to work harder to improve the unit’s profit margins. In the first quarter, pretax income for IBM’s tech services fell 19 percent, even as revenue rose 7 percent.

Wednesday’s job cuts were largely part of the company’s response. Although IBM did not disclose where the layoffs were being made, the company had blamed the first-quarter profit shortfall on problems in its U.S. outsourcing business.

IBM executives say they expect no more layoffs this quarter. But other shifts like this - IBM calls it “rebalancing” - figure to follow from time to time.

read more at YAHOO!

Not only are teachers not paid enough all across the Country. Not only are classroom sizes way too large (number of students), now Chi Town cuts 775 teachers. Who’s going to teach our kids in 20 years?

About 775 probationary teachers in Chicago public schools learned Friday they are losing their jobs in a purge that district leaders say could improve the quality of instruction in the system’s most challenged schools.

The teachers were dismissed for various reasons, but the most common was an inability to manage their classrooms. Probationary teachers include those who have been in the district less than five years and others who have worked for longer than that as full-time substitutes.

More teachers were let go last year, when a budget crunch forced schools to cut hundreds of teaching jobs. This year’s dismissals were triggered largely by performance issues.

The cuts represent about 11 percent of the district’s estimated 7,000 non-tenured teachers. Last year, principals acknowledged that they fired some probationary teachers for budget reasons, and about 110 of the 1,050 dismissed then ended up being rehired at the same school.

Schools Chief Arne Duncan said the cuts allow principals to build the best teams for their schools, and they are not to solve budget problems or get rid of outspoken teachers, as some critics have alleged. He said the quality and quantity of the teaching recruits this year gives him confidence that these vacancies will be filled by educators who can better reach students in hard-to’staff schools.

Principals always have had the right to dismiss teachers who have been in the district less than five years, but the current union contract makes the process easier.

The practice of firing probationary teachers has proven to be divisive for the teachers union as it prepares for the election of new officers next month. Union President Marilyn Stewart has decried the change in the contract that allows the district to fire the teachers more easily and blames Deborah Lynch, her predecessor and campaign opponent.

Read more at The Chicago Tribune

Gee, this sounds like real good news doesn’t it? Well……this article I posted yesterday, shows these figures are already back in the dumper.

The number of U.S. workers applying for jobless benefits rose by an unexpectedly large 18,000 last week to 327,000.

Bullshit Bullshit and more bullshit…….

By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer | November 3, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate dropped to a five-year low of 4.4 percent in October as employers added 92,000 new jobs — flashing a picture of a strong labor market as the midterm elections draw near.

The latest report, released Friday by the Labor Department, showed that the civilian unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage point from 4.6 percent in September. It marked the third month in a row that the politically prominent jobless rate declined.

The tally of new jobs added to the economy in October fell short of economists expectations for an increase of around 125,000 positions, however. Nonetheless, job gains in both August and September turned out to be much stronger than previously estimated — and that took a lot of the sting out of October’s less-than-expected payroll performance.

More here

The end of the American dream?

Analysis By Steve Schifferes
Economics reporter, BBC News website

The US economy has been generating strong economic growth over the past few years as it has come out of recession.

After growing at more than 3% a year in 2004 and 2005, the pace picked up to a blistering 5.6% annual rate in the first quarter of this year - although the pace has since then slipped back to 2.9%.

So far, though, little of that growth has translated into the hands of the average worker, according to new research from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

For real household incomes, the median point - the level at which half of households earn more and half less - has actually fallen over the past five years.

That marks a notable contrast with the 1990s, when the economic boom boosted both jobs and incomes.

The puzzle of economic expansion without significant job or wage growth has been troubling US economists and commentators of all political persuasions.
…

Rising inequality

Even for those with jobs, the fruits of economic growth have been more unequally distributed within the labour market.

The incomes of the top 20% have grown much faster than earnings of those at the middle or bottom of the income distribution. The income of the top 1% and top 0.1% have grown particularly rapidly.

From 1992 to 2005, the pay of chief executive officers of major companies rose by 186%.

The equivalent figure for median hourly wages was 7.2%, leaving the ratio of CEOs’ pay to that of the average worker at 262.

In the 1960s, the comparable figure was 24.

Full article

Dozens of Volkswagen Beetles - also known as bugs - have converged on the Kathmandu area for the sixth rally run by An-Bug - the Association of Nepal Beetle Users Group. photos here

VW denies report of more job cuts.

A senior Volkswagen executive has denied a report that the firm may cut an extra 10,000 jobs, but admitted the situation at the company was “serious”.

VW personnel chief Horst Neumann insisted he had never suggested any plans to extend February’s warning of a possible 20,000 cuts over three years.

“There is no reason to panic, and certainly no reason to create panic,” he told the Reuters news agency.

VW has warned that 20,000 job cuts may be needed to boost productivity.

BBC article here

VW’s Mexico staff may cut demands.

The union representing striking workers at Volkswagen’s (VW’s) Mexico factory has said it is prepared to reduce its wage demands to help end the dispute.
As workers prepared to down tools for a fourth day on Tuesday, the union said it was ready to lower its 8.5% pay rise demand, but gave no exact details.

Managers at the Puebla factory, which makes all VW’s Beetle cars, have so far only offered a 4% increase.

In 2004, workers at the plant won a 4.5% pay rise after a four-day strike.

Another walkout at the Puebla facility in 2001 lasted 18 days before the two sides reached agreement.

BBC article here

The Englishman who saved Hitler’s Beetle.

Ferdinand Porsche is credited with creating the VW Beetle - with a little prompting from Adolf Hitler. But it was Ivan Hirst, a British soldier, who started the production line running. Without him the world would not be about to see the 21,529,464th and final Beetle leave the paint shop.

BBC article here