The countries which are least affected are Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Brunei, Libya, Jordan and Lebanon where job losses are not significant.

Have you lost your jobs in recession in any country abroad? Were you forced to relocate back to India due to recession? Share your story with us by writing in the comments below.

There are reports that entire top management of Air India will be recast in the coming 30 days. It is said that some of the old time directors are going to be asked to leave. Air India will be looking for a Professional Chief Operating Officer. However what needs to be seen if they will do away with a beurocrat taking up the position of CMD (whether the CMD Arvind Jadhav will continue in office)?

Air India will be roping in some of the leading corporate personalities and management gurus as independent directors. Government it seems is happy with the help they have got from the directors they appointed in the Satyam case. So they expect these corporate honchos to put Air India back on track and ensure that it turns around to profitability.

Layoffs expected?

The future for the Air India employees will be tough as the new decision makers will sure take the togh decision and this will sure lead to layoffs. No independet director will take this job unless they are given full power to take decisions. So no matter what the layoffs will come to Air India – hard or soft. What needs to be seen is how they will tackle it. It may be recalled that Government has forced Jet airways to take back its laid off employees earlier. Now the ball is in Government’s court and see what they will do with the excess staff they have?

The job losses in this downturn are hitting workers across all income levels and job categories.Job losses are piling up and there are more jobs to be cut in the future.There are lot of people being handed pink slips across the globe.In this gloomy scenario, people are frantically looking for ways to cope with the situation.Nokia, world’s largest mobile phone maker, will be pruning its global workforce again by another 490 jobs, with as many as 170 positions to be slashed in logistics, production management and production support areas. American Express has announced that it will be eliminating about 4,000 jobs as part of a plan to reduce another $800 million in costs for the remainder of the year.

The deepening global downturn has left more Americans unemployed than in nearly 30 years. The speed and scale of recent layoffs are staggering, but heavy industry jobs have been hit particularly hard.In most cases, the cutbacks reflects a bleak 2009 outlook for national economies stricken by severe downturns across the globe. Manufacturers and other businesses continue to
slash production and payrolls to survive tough times. In 2008, the United States economy lost 3 million jobs, and 600,000 more in the last month alone.China, the world’s third-largest economy after the U.S. and Japan, is one of the only major economies still growing, though its growth slowed sharply in the past year. The government says about 20 million migrants have lost their jobs and leaders worry about possible unrest.

Air France-KLM is looking to shed 3,000 jobs in its current financial year:
The cuts come in addition to 2,700 posts eliminated in the fiscal year to 31 March 2009, as the airline industry suffers a fall in demand. Air France-KLM is expecting to shed 3,000 jobs in its current financial year, in a bid to further cut costs.The firm separately announced a tie-up with Delta Airlines on selected routes to share revenues and costs. Delta is the world’s largest airline, while Air France is the largest carrier in Europe. The deal, which is initially for a 10-year period, covers all flights between North America and Europe, Amsterdam and India, and between North America and Tahiti.

Hewlett-Packard has decided to slash more than 6,400 jobs… :
The company, which has a strong presence in India, has reported a 17 per cent fall in profits at USD 1.7 billion for the three months ended April 30, 2009. New York Technology major Hewlett-Packard, has posted a steep decline in second quarter profits, will be cutting more than 6,400 jobs or about two per cent of its global workforce in the coming months. Revenue from outside the United States in the second quarter accounted for 64 per cent of total revenue, with revenue in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) declining 12 per cent over the prior-year period while accounting for nine per cent of total HP revenue,” the statement noted. In May last year, Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced that it would acquire technology services company EDS for about USD 13.9 billion.

Dutch state-controlled bank ABN Amro plans to axe a net of 4,000 to 5,000 jobs:
DUTCH STATE-controlled bank ABN Amro posted a €886 million after-tax loss in the first quarter, with most of the total incurred by units in the process of being transferred to Royal Bank of Scotland.A consortium including RBS, Fortis and Spanish banking group Santander bought ABN Amro in 2007 for €70 billion. After a crisis of confidence, the Dutch government took over Fortis’s local operations, including its interests in ABN Amro, last October for €16.8 billion.The complexity of the two series of transactions is such that the process of separating the ABN Amro businesses acquired by the Dutch state from the businesses acquired by RBS is still ongoing.ABN said last week it planned to cut 4,000 to 5,000 jobs and up to €1.3 billion in costs over the course of its integration with Fortis Bank Nederland. That integration is the next step the
government plans after the RBS split, and was part of Fortis’s original plan.

Irish lender ACC Bank has announced that it will cut 200 jobs and close 16 branches around the country:
ACC Bank is to cut 200 jobs and close 16 branches around the country and has blamed the global financial crisis, the sharp deterioration in the Irish economy and collapse of the property market for the move.The lender to small and medium-sized businesses and the agricultural sector, which is owned by Dutch financial services provider Rabobank, will close branches between October and next April.

If the company has decided that layoffs are necessary and they announced  it then one can make the best of a bad situation by taking different steps to come over from this situation.If things go perfectly, employees won’t ever have to do layoffs.

Layoffs are a major event and should be handled by top company executives.An advance notice should be given to the employees about the mass layoffs. As soon as the company know that they will have to do a layoff, if they hold a meeting and tell to employees about the reason for doing layoffs then this will allow some forewarning to the employees so that the actually layoff isn’t such a shock. It is a terrible thing for a family when parents goes to work daily, and one day comes home  unemployed. Often one of the questions that people ask is, “how am I going to tell my family?” If your employees get some warning beforehand, they will be able to prepare their families for the possibility of a layoff.

After company layoffs, many survivors are required to cope with  demands as a result of additional work that was previously performed by former co-workers. In many cases, the increased workload causes a decrease in effectiveness and productivity. Unexpected stress is caused to the workers. If you are in a similar situation, in order to increase effectiveness at work after surviving company layoffs consider implementing these pro-active strategies for approaching your job.

If you experience a layoff or job termination, you are usually eligible for unemployment. Apply immediately following the layoff. Your employer can not contest payment on a layoff or job termination as this is not a performance based loss. Also, you can have unemployment and severance at the same time. Do not forget to apply for unemployment immediately, even if you get severance. Stay aggressive in your job search. The market is very competitive. Use resources like free seminars at the unemployment office, library, community to help create new skills or enhance skills. This is also a good way to network.

Focus on your strengths. A negative attitude can affect your people skills and reduce your chances at finding a new job. Write out a list of your strengths and careers successes to boost your confidence. This will also help will preparation for possible interview questions.

Getting to hard numbers let’s assume that a company A sacks 10 per cent of its employees and promises to pay 12-months’  salary in advance. Also, let’s assume that on an average these employees earn Rs 20,000 per month. This will help them get Rs 2,40,000 in advance. This amount if planned and spent productively can help them cope financially till the time they get another job. If you have a debt of any kind — home loan, personal loan, credit card payment etc — make provision for that first from the money that you can squeeze out from your ex-employer. There is no point in defaulting on your debt as it may come to hound you later — via your credit rating — when your financial condition improves.

If  this happpens then no employee can get into depress after getting the pink slip. The company has to think over the future of the employees because the top of the company will get an idea previously  about the financial situation of the company then and there only they take the decision of  layoff,s and if such situation occurs then they should provide saalry for atlest 4 months till that they can get settled in a next  job.

Till now in India the layoff by an Indian company were an hush hush affair. The layoff or pink slips (as they are called in western world) were thought to be a way of only companies from rest of world. This event was unlike the earlier layoffs which has been splashed in media like anything.

On the other side of world amidst the economic recession more than 750,000 jobs have disappeared from the U.S. economy this year. The workers face the prospect of plenty more layoffs to come as a continuing credit crunch and weak consumer demand hamper firms trying to maintain payrolls.

Now the big question before all of us workers is – “How safe is my job”? The answer is tricky but not difficult. You can now look for early warnings indicators for approaching layoffs. Here are seven signs (EWAs) that may signal your position is on the line.

(1) Other got fired in your company: If others are losing their jobs you may too, even if your boss says otherwise. Prepare yourself for that call to corner office and being handed over the pink slip. Note that in bad times even management may not have sense of things which may be affecting the business real time. In a globalized economy situations change rapidly. This does not mean that people are telling lies but them may not be aware genuinely. It may be the case of missing information, or circumstances change.

The basic pint is that you need to be aware of the possibility of a layoff. Workers at greatest risk of layoffs may be those who were most recently hired (although a lot depends on company policy). This was the case with Jet Airways layoff above. Other targets are workers who aren’t getting the job done. Middle management and highly paid top managers are also targets. The workers who are contract are also among the first to go.

(2) Freeze on New Hiring: Vanishing job postings (internal or external) and vanishing referral schemes are also send a layoff signal. You should look at whether colleagues are taking on more or less work, and whether some are being asked or told to leave.

The sequence of disappearance is typically started with the newly created or budgeted positions that have not been filled which are the first to go, then replacement positions that used to be posted and have disappeared, and then come the retirements that seem to be welcomed by management and are not filled.

(3) Training budgets cut: Even large companies may cut training budgets, a red flag that financial concerns could lead to layoffs. While there are certain critical initiatives or projects that need to go forward if a company wants to keep up production, workers should watch out when project spending slows.

From an employee’s standpoint, anytime they see an organization cutting back on its spending and cutting back on activities, as well as staff or initiatives around them, they need to think through the details and figure out at what point does it reach my position.

(4) New projects and events vanishing from scene: The new IT project or budgeted initiative has just vanished and no one talks about it now. Well, that is an indication of slowdown and probable cut in employees who are normally required for new projects.

(5) Office Grapevine: Conventional wisdom calls for taking office gossip with a pinch of salt. But sometimes it makes sense to listen to what your co-workers are saying and doing. It makes sense to notice what the talk is and to notice how people’s responsibilities or jobs are being redefined.

(6) Company is missing targets quarter after quarter: While some management may be less than forthcoming about missed targets for financial performance, workers can investigate a company’s health by checking out the budget. A major sign of approaching layoffs is a business that isn’t performing well. Especially at publicly traded companies, performance is critical, because firms that don’t perform to an expected level, even during recessionary times, will be forced to cut back.

(7) What your top management is saying in public: The top management speeches and statements in public are sometimes indicators of coming dangers. Like in case of Jet airways – a stress deal with Kingfisher airlines is announced a couple of days earlier and this followed by retrenchments.

Whatever may be the reason workers all over the world need to face recession and have to secure their jobs. Making note of early warning indicators may help in some cases.