All Things Digital

AT&T (T) is “shifting headcount to areas where the customers are”–literally. This morning, the telecom sacked about 4,650 employees, trimming its work force by about 1.5%.

The cuts were made across the company and, according to AT&T spokesman Walt Sharp, are not an indication of weakness in the business. Said Sharp: “This is part of our ongoing evaluations to streamline the business. It’s about having the right people in the right job. … We’re shifting headcount to areas where the customers are.“

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was right. It didn’t quietly shed 5% of its work force in mid-March. How could it when it was busy preparing to shed twice that number in April?

This afternoon AMD said it will lay off 10% of its work force, or about 1,600 employees, by the third quarter of 2008 in an effort to cut costs. More ugly news for the company, which said it expects first-quarter revenue of $1.5 billion, about 15% lower than it reported in the fourth quarter.

Dell (DELL) founder and CEO Michael Dell wasn’t kidding when he said cost-cutting is a company priority. Earlier this week, Dell reaffirmed its plans to reduce employee headcount by at least 8,800. But by the time he met with analysts this morning, Dell had apparently determined that reduction isn’t enough. Reuters reports that Dell said he plans to take the knife to the company again, cutting beyond that 8,800 target. “We are not satisfied with the current state of affairs and are on a mission to fix it,” said Dell. “Every area of the company is being pursued.”

Google announced the first major layoffs in its 10-year history Wednesday - at DoubleClick, the online advertising company it bought last month for $3.24 billion. About 300 of DoubleClick’s 1,200 U.S. employees were sacked or reassigned to “transitional” roles. “As with many mergers, this review has resulted in a reduction in headcount at the acquired company,” a Google spokesman explained. “We are confident that our combined organizational structure, along with the skills and experience of our new colleagues, will allow us to continue to offer great products and services to our customers.”

Well, at least they’re describing it as “a reduction in headcount” and not a “rightsizing,” “resource realignment” or “shifting of jobs to lower-cost areas” …

In addition to releasing nearly a quarter of DoubleClick’s workforce back into the wild, Google is selling off the company’s Performics search marketing business. Performics facilitates ad placement within Google’s search results, so unloading it should put to rest concerns about potential conflicts of interest. “It is clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business,” Tom Phillips, the Google director overseeing the DoubleClick integration (and former Spy magazine publisher), wrote in a post to the Google Blog. “Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to our mission and core to the trust we ask from our users.”

Sounds like search outfit Ask is having a bit of, ahem, engine trouble. Employees tell Valleywag that the company is buzzing with talk of layoffs. And now come reports that Ask proprietor InterActiveCorp (IACI) may soon scrap Teoma, the engine that powers the company’s search. “There is indeed a big shake-up coming,” a company insider told Silicon Alley Insider. “A new Ask. Some think a reduction in workforce is likely. There are no sacred cows, Teoma may be sold or simply abandoned, which is hundreds of engineers who work on the core search engine, in place of just using Google’s search with our special brand of user interface.”

No sacred cows, huh? If that means Ask is a student of the Jerry Yang School of Corporate Turnarounds, well … maybe Microsoft will have a little money left over after it swallows Yahoo.

UPDATE: PaidContent has confirmed that some 100 Ask employees will be sacked come April.

Nortel has sacked so many employees in the past eight years, it’s a wonder there are enough pink slips left in HR to inform those who remain of their termination.

The company’s workforce, which numbered nearly 95,000 in 2000, had been cut to 32,500 by the end of the last quarter. And now it’s to be cut further still. Yesterday, the troubled maker of communications equipment reported an ugly fourth-quarter loss of $844 million and announced plans to cut 2,100 jobs and relocate another 1,000 to “higher growth and lower cost” (read: lower wage) areas like China, Mexico, Turkey and India. This latest round of reductions comes almost on the anniversary of Nortel’s last bloodbath–a reduction that eliminated 2,900 jobs and shifted another 1,000 to those “higher growth/lower cost” areas.

Once a high-tech darling, Nortel has spent the past several years trying to recover from the general downturn in the telecom industry and a massive and debilitating accounting scandal. “We are on a journey to rebuild this company,” goes the now familiar refrain sounded quarterly by Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski on the company’s earnings calls. But these days, it seems even the undaunted Zafirovski is feeling, you know, a bit daunted. “Let me just say up front, we have a ways to go,” Zafirovski said yesterday. “We’re not blind to the skepticism facing us. I’ve never seen a turnaround where you fix a business overnight. … And, frankly, the economy is not helping matters. It’s a challenging environment.”

Our outlook contemplates a workforce realignment of approximately 1,000 people that we will be implementing in mid-February.”

–Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen

The streets outside Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters will soon be running purple with the blood of the “realigned.” The company will begin handing out pink slips today to the roughly 1,000 employees worldwide whose jobs are being eliminated.

What was it again that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang wrote in his latest all-hands memo?

You deserve the credit for the tremendously valuable business we have built. All of us in management, as well as the members of the board, deeply appreciate and respect what you have done and continue to do in order to maintain and enhance Yahoo’s leadership position in the online world.”