Perspective...

Last night I watched "60 Minutes"

It's an American television documentary-news show. They had a  piece that chronicled the hardship of the town of Wilmington, Ohio relative to the withdrawal and shut down of DHL Express US domestic service. 

The impact of DHL's service changes has had clear impact on this small town and southwestern Ohio as well.   While it's indicative of the hardship Americans are facing with the current economy, it's not the only company nor community that's hurting.  Taking our whole country into account, we are hurting in many areas.  

Here's just a short list of companies who have laid off employees.

• Sprint Nextel = 8,000 jobs
• Caterpillar = 20,000 jobs
• Home Depot = 7,000 jobs
• Microsoft = 5,000 jobs
• Washington Mutual = 3,000 jobs
• Starbucks = 2,000 jobs 
• Circuit City = 35,000 jobs
• General Motors = 2,000 jobs

Thats 82,000 American workers without even talking about the Automotive Industry.

That's NOWHERE near an exhaustive list!!   But the numbers are scary when you start adding them up. My 21 year old daughter was delighted to get a hostess job at an upper end restaurant today.  She commented that there were a lot of "clearly professional" people applying for the same job.  Times are HARD and a job is a job.  That lesson (surprisingly) wasn't lost on my kid. 

Even Google has laid off 100 recruiters. Google is still in growth mode, but perhaps it may take a pause in gaining new geniuses.  It may have enough for now.

The total personnel reduction at DHL will be over 20,000 folks as the company reconfigures to "International only" service.   However, a few things can be said. DHL never asked for a federal subsidy nor bail out.   Second, we never asked our customers to pay extra for our services in the face of difficulty.  Lastly, Deutsche Post put up serious money to assist outgoing employees with both job retraining and economic welfare.

The clear deal here is that DHL will focus on its core products and match its capacity to individual markets. To do anything else would not be smart.  

 I used to tell my customers back in the 1980's that "if you can't sell it, I can't ship it."  That saying is truer now than ever.  Let it be said that I am not an apologist for DHL.   I am a participant in the current economic adventure. 

Nobodys job is safe these days.  Mine included. 

Eric

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Comments

[freight shipping]

Unfortunately these numbers looks like they may be the tip of the ice-burg as the economic winter is not showing many signs of thawing quickly...

[Shawn in Melbourne]

Bad news in the sense that volumes will be down. But these days, many companies like DHL and UPS provide (or at least attempt to) total supply chain solutions, which are just as critical in a downturn as they are in upturns.

Pure inventory movers, or business units that are pure inventory movers, will be hurt the worst. But companies that can help customers dynamically reconfigure their supply chain or help deploy new technology that allows greater efficiencies will still be successful, although under the strain of greater competition with smaller investment capital pools.

[Stuart Chirls]

Layoffs from struggling companies like Circuit City and Linens 'n' Things arem't surprising. Layoffs by Home Depot and Caterpillar illustrate how the credit crunch is draining cash reserves of mainstay companies. Those effects are pushing back to manufacturers in China who have been forced to shutter factories -- bad news for logistics providers.

[Eric]

Good GOD. That careerbuilder commercial is painful. Possibly the most irritating commercial I have seen in quite awhile.

[Neha]

You are absolutely right, "a job is a job" in this harsh climate which is exactly why I think CareerBuilder's latest monstrosity of an ad is ineffective:

http://thatsmymo.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/et-tu-careerbuilder/

[Gerard (Jerry) Hempstead]

I watched the 60 Minutes piece and cried. I had been part of Airborne at the time of the purchase of Wilmington and the build up of the airline after the deregulation of the air cargo business in 1980. What CBS did not make clear was that the people laid off in Wilmington are NOT employees of DHL, but of ABX Air inc. DHL does not count these people in the number they are laying off. These are collateral damage. Just as many of the drivers do not work for DHL but for contractors who have the contract to pick up and deliver in many markets. The cost of DHL's exit from domestic express is far greater than what DHL announced or what CBS reported Sunday night. It's a horrible tragedy because it did not have to happen. The marriage of DHL and Airborne in 2003 was a correct one. The failure was the consequence of ego, arrogance and excess, for which nobody will be held accountable.