Tag: Layoffs

The Layoff Scene in Philly & beyond

Tom Paine

Like many analysts and tech workers, I find the job market for enterprise software workers to be difficult to read right now.

I’ll start with Oracle, which The Information reported as having laid off “several hundred people”, mostly from Advertising and Customer Experience services, while concentrating more on healthcare after completing its Cerner acquisition. Oracle’s cutbacks seem more a result of a long-planned restructuring than a reaction to current economic conditions, but I’m sure the economy is an added factor.

At other major enterprise software companies (Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Workday, Adobe ) there is little evidence of current layoffs. Salesforce, however, did lay off many in Hong Kong as part of a strategy to outsource China operations to Alibaba Cloud.

If you want to look for weakness at Salesforce, a good place to look at is its ecosystem, composed of companies that receive a high percentage of revenue selling to Salesforce customers.

Chicago-based Copado, which creates Devops tools primarily for Salesforce customers, recently laid “more than 100” of its 700 employees. Not clear why; Copado had recently expanded its efforts to the SAP community. Automox, a Boulder-based cloud operations vendor also heavily into the Salesforce space, laid off 18% of its employees (around 75 people) in mid-June, citing economic conditions.

Other than Gopuff’s last large reduction in July, I haven’t seen any other large tech layoffs in the Philly market. That doesn’t mean they aren’t in the process of happening; there can be a lag between the time layoffs happen and the time that news about them seeps out. But sometimes when an emerging startup cuts two or three engineers, it can be a big deal to that company though you may not hear about it.

In a different category, eCommerce, Shopify conceded that it had bet too much on continuing pandemic-fueled growth and was planning to cut up to 10%, or 1,000 employees.

Two of my best sources on the Philly Tech job market are very positive:

Mark Constan

1w

For those who have been #laidoff The July #Jobs Report was released and the US added 528,000 jobs. Unemployment even dipped to 3.5%, which is the lowest it’s been in 50 years. Hold you head up! Enjoy this weekend. Enjoy the time off you have this summer! You will have something soon.

https://www.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:6961325982012030977

1w

Trying to be positive.
Many layoffs are happening, and employees and candidates need to do some homwework in financials and product.


T. Brad Kielinski• 1stFounder & CEO at IT Pros1mo • 1 month ago

If there were ever a time to be laid off, now is the time.

Tech unemployment is 2.1%

The hiring market is booming for skilled and accomplished professionals.

There are 348,000+ “Software Engineer” jobs advertised on this platform alone.

Although the rise in salaries have calmed down, the only real challenge becomes which offer do you take?

Good luck out there.

https://ww.linkedin.com/embed/feed/update/urn:li:share:6961325982012030977

Remember, though, that recruiters have a natural bias towards keeping candidates positive and active.

Let me know of any layoff news at [email protected]

Update 8/27:FreshDirect shut down its Philly operations after 12 years. eliminating 40 jobs in the process.

Update 8/31: Things are fairly quiet, though its difficult to ascertain whats going on behind the scenes. Wondering if Comcast will be cutting workforce, given slowing growth.

Update 9/1: Two WARN Notices:

Conduit Global Inc.
3400 Bath Pike
Bethlehem, PA 18017

175 people affected

DHL Supply Chain
120 Commerce Lane
Tatamy, PA 18085

58 Affected

Cerner lays off 255; Impact on Malvern campus not known

Kansas City-based healthcare systems vendor Cerner confirmed this week it was laying off 255 employees, effective November 5.

Cerner’s financials are not suffering much, but it may be entering a slower growth phase as reliance on one business model (implementing electronic health records) must be replaced by another and the solution is not yet clear.

In April, Cerner entered into an agreement with activist investor fund Starboard Value, which owns more than 1 percent of the company’s stock. The agreement included taking a look at Cerner’s operations. Cerner agreed to implement operating and cost structure changes.

How does this effect Cerner Malvern, the result of Cerner’s 2015 acquisition of Siemens Health Services, formerly Shared Medical Systems?

Its not yet publicly known how many people (if any) at Malvern may have been impacted. But a thread on theLayoff.com suggested the outlook for Malvern wasn’t too good. But remember that a few comments do not equal a good sample.

Cerner has around 30,00 employees. It posted 2018 results of $5.366 billion in revenue and net income of $630 million. According to LinkedIn, Cerner has approximately 1300 Philly area employees.

I’ve asked Cerner for comment. Received the following response:

“As mentioned in our Earnings call earlier this year, we’re looking to identify organizational efficiencies as we implement our new operating model. Part of that strategy includes a realignment of resces focused on key growth areas across the company. We’ve onboarded nearly 3,000 associates this year and will continue to hire hundreds more throughout 2019. Impacted associates are eligible for those opportunities.

In Malvern, Cerner has what we call a “Center of Excellence” built around Revenue Cycle Management (our integrated approach to linking the continuum of care with effective billing and scheduling) as well as other functions including finance, human resources and other corporate and executive roles.“

UA-139544338-1