EBay to cut 10 percent of jobs, biggest such move in company's 13 years

[itrecovery]

NEW YORK (AP) - After a series of changes designed to draw more people to its online marketplace, eBay Inc.'s latest alteration is aimed at its own employees. The auction site operator said Monday it will cut about 1,600 jobs, 10 percent of its work force, in its largest round of dismissals ever.

About 1,000 full-time employees will be gone, while eBay will achieve the rest of the cuts by letting temporary and part-time workers go and by leaving open positions unfilled. EBay would not describe which positions would be cut, other than to say they will come across the company and around the world.

EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said in an interview that the cuts were not a reaction to the weak economy. Investors were still disheartened, sending eBay shares to a 5 1/2-year low.

[lina-mallows]

Am I surprised? NO!
This isn't the end.........just the beginning of it.

[whoscloset]

hehehe

eBay has been going downhill for 3 years. Donahoe just increased the pace of the sled.

[lina-mallows]

whoscloset- And as Canadians- we are well able to recognize a sled going downhill!

Hope everyone enjoys the ride!

[palms_and_pdas]

Been telling my power seller rep for months even his job is not safe and ebay is not doing it's job.

He disagreed with me that ebay employees are safe and they were hiring toting the party line.

I guess he is eating crow now !!!

Sell your ebay stock or short them, as there is money to be made on the companies downhill slide.

Fitz

[palms_and_pdas]

Hey Monique

How are you doing ???

Have not seen you here in some of the postings I have looked at.

Are we still playing nice or should I get my boxing gloves on ???

Fitz

[gifts_of_elegance]

I said the same thing to my account manager months ago. She did not agree but I don't want her to eat crow. She is an employee who depends on her paycheck to live, and not in any position to bad mouth the company she works for or its management.

Only sellers had the luxury of hating eBay, but maybe that will change too. Ebay in its infinite wisdom might decide to "fire" sellers that bad mouth them.

Anything is possible.

[whoscloset]

I always play nice Fitz. 🙂

[jeffglobal]

Does anybody know if Miriam is okay, in light of this announcement??????

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi everyone ... I posted this on CTS yesterday ...


Looks like most of you are aware of the organizational changes announced by eBay yesterday.

We're working with our colleagues in the US and around the world right now to determine the impact of these changes. Once we have more information, we'll let you know and do our best to answer your questions.

In the meantime, I really appreciate your patience ... as you can imagine, it's been a rough few days.

Best,

Miriam

[whoscloset]

(((Miriam)))

I'm so sorry for what you and your fellow ebay employees are going through right now. Years of misreading the on-line market and ebay's own data has led to this downfall. 😞

As you are well aware though...I can't say as I didn't see it coming.

[gifts_of_elegance]

"EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said in an interview that the cuts were not a reaction to the weak economy"

The guy could have had at least enough class, if not smarts not to say this if he didn't have enough compassion to say "It is with much regret that we had to make this decision and hope that it is only a temporary measure" or something like that.

[dipmicro]

"EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe said in an interview that the cuts were not a reaction to the weak economy"

Well, there is only two causes of bad performance of the company: 1) bad management, 2) bad market (economy). I don't konw this guy as I do not invest the time to learn all the eBay celebs (and generally any bulvar) but he kind of rulled out the 2) so what that does say ?

[dipmicro]

Little off topic, but ...

It's ironic that when the management (of any company) struggles, it's usually employees who are laid off and not the other way 😉

If you ever worked at company bigger than 10 people, when productive employee is not around (vacation, sick), the backlog grows. When a manager is out, usually nobody notices (and cares), sometimes even effectivity can go up.

[gifts_of_elegance]

My husband's nephew is second in command for a European firm that is 2nd largest in that country. He can take month long vacations several time through the year whereas most employees have a hard time taking an extra week off!