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MCD's employees were first warned of layoff plans in early January 2023: https://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-ceo-warns-staff-of-possible-layoffs-in-spring-2023 But in an announcement last week, MCD's corporate employees were told to work remotely from April 3-5 and to reschedule any in-person meetings at McDonald's global headquarters in Chicago in order to "communicate key decisions related to roles and staffing levels across the organization." Summary: 1 McDonald's offices will temporarily close as the company prepares for layoffs, per an internal memo. 2 The company is shifting its strategy to focus on digital, delivery, and restaurant unit growth. McDonald's employs over 150,000 corporate employees, including employees at its corporate-owned restaurants. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/read-full-memo-mcdonalds-outlines-133349184.html Time to move on to KFC? Or will KFC follow suit?

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/shopee-cuts-singapore-jobs-in-regional-layoffs-says-affected-staff-will-get-appropriate-compensation-packages SINGAPORE - Employees affected by e-commerce platform Shopee's latest round of job cuts will be given "appropriate compensation packages" in line with market norms, the firm said in a joint statement with the Creative Media and Publishing Union (CMPU) on Monday. This comes as some staff in Singapore were informed that they were part of further layoffs on Monday. The Straits Times understands that a low single-digit percentage of Shopee workers are affected, although it is not clear how many of the platform's regional markets will be hit in this latest cost-cutting exercise. Shopee's layoffs include employees in human resources, regional operations, marketing, and product and engineering, The Business Times reported on Monday. It also cited sources saying that some workers, including those in Singapore and China, began receiving e-mail notices of their layoffs shortly after department-wide town halls on Monday. Shopee, the e-commerce arm of New York Stock Exchange-listed Sea, had earlier this year cut workers in its ShopeeFood and ShopeePay teams in the region. Its parent company has been undertaking extensive cost-cutting measures in recent months, with questions over its money-making prospects intensifying amid the challenging global environment and widespread decline in technology stocks. Maybe they shouldn't have splurged on such extravagance. 😶

SINGAPORE: E-commerce platform Carousell announced it is cutting 10 per cent of the group's total headcount, or about 110 roles, as part of efforts to cut costs. The company's chief executive Quek Siu Rui said on Thursday (Dec 1) that only employees from some business units were affected. Those affected were informed by email and were also invited to a meeting with a team leader and a human resources business partner. Mr Quek said this was a "very difficult decision". "I am deeply sorry for this outcome, and I take responsibility for the decisions that have led us here." The affected regular employees will receive at least three months' salary, allowed to encash all remaining paid time-off, and have their medical benefits and insurance coverage extended until June 30, 2023, among other measures. Tools for job search, counselling services for emotional and mental support, as well as career counselling and employment assistance will be provided to those affected. Mr Quek said Carousell was eager to reignite growth in its core classified business after the COVID-19 pandemic, and was also optimistic about the recovery to come. The company had doubled down on a number of new initiatives, which meant creating more teams to work on them and increasing its headcount. "Looking back, I’d made the following critical mistakes," said Mr Quek. He said he was firstly too optimistic about the pace of Carousell's impact versus its increase in its investments. The company was quick to grow its expenses and hire, but the returns took longer than expected. Mr Quek added he also underestimated the impact of growing the company's team size too quickly - larger teams led to a lack of clarity in decision-making and the additional coordination required to get things done. "It does not help that the worsening macroeconomic environment presents more headwinds to the growth expected." Full article here: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/carousell-employees-lay-cut-costs-compensation-3117911 The press release looks almost like a cut and paste from Mark Zuckerberg three weeks ago.

Beginning of the end of good times??? IBM is expected to go through a massive reorg next month that will reportedly see 26% of its 430,000-strong work force let go, or 111,800 people. If that figure holds true, that would make it far and away the largest corporate layoff event in history, breaking the record previously held by IBM, when it cut 60,000 in 1993. The problem is a complex mess of bad management – like laying off important people in the middle of a project – to getting sidetracked with pie-in-the-sky ideas like commercializing Watson and failing to adjust to the new era. The "M" in IBM may mean machines, but hardware is less than 10% of its business. Two-thirds is in services, and the services pipeline has dried up. Why? Well, according to an ex-IBMer I spoke to some time ago, who confirmed what Cringely wrote in his book, IBM is still wedded to services contracts in an age where companies are shutting down their internal data center entirely and moving everything to the cloud. If you don't have a data center, you don't need an IBM service contract to manage it. That's why IBM grabbed Softlayer, the cloud services provider. It needed to get into the cloud fast because it was behind Microsoft, Google and Amazon. Since the purchase 18 months ago, IBM has put a huge amount of money into SoftLayer and there has been a number of announcements around SoftLayer services. Cringely said the mainframe and storage areas will see deep cuts, which is pretty stupid considering IBM announced the new Z13 mainframe and hopes it will stimulate sales. That won't be easy when you cut the people who are supposed to sell it. Cutting storage is also foolish, as we are in the era of Big Data and Data Lakes and storage is vital to these concepts. And you have to wonder what a layoff of 110,000 people will do to the firm. That has to be jarring. I remember an old advertisement from the print days that said "What's worse, getting laid off on a Friday or being told to pick up the slack on the following Monday?" This will be undeniably upsetting to the survivors, who will likely spend time updating their LinkedIn profiles. The question I have to ask is why isn't Rometty one of the 110k. IBM has seen 11 straight quarters of declining revenue and it's hemorrhaging customers, according to both my source and Cringely. It's becoming apparent she is not up for the job and can't pull the company out of its nose dive. Cringely said the layoffs will begin next week and by the end of February, all of the employees will be gone. If nothing else, IBM's first quarter numbers will take a monstrous hit from the severance packages for 111,000 employees. To say nothing of what this will do to its customer confidence.