He said: "The new management team is committed to rapidly executing this new strategy and leveraging the new streamlined organization. We are focused on delivering results and restoring profitability."

Could you get him to repeat that in English?

to the dole queue.

Let me be the first to use this story to make a vague and incorrect but nevertheless negative comment about the Conservative government even though they haven't been elected yet.

Mines the one that AC wore on his way in.

5000 contractors and 1000 managers. Hmm.

Well, the contractors should be expecting it - one of the advantages of using them is "flexibility" (and in a recession, flexibility means getting rid of people).

But it's nice to see managers going instead of people who do actual work ;-)

And no, the "they were managing the contractors" suggestion doesn't wash - if you need one manager for 5 people, you seriously need to get better managers or trim your processes.

Well, here in America it was the darlings of the conservatives, those might warriors of Wall Street that brought the economy to its knees. I can't believe that someone who was on the "dole" could possibly cost society enough to take out those $billions of dollars.

Oh, but by all means! Please, as you always have, ignore the truth and wait for the next time. And... there will be a next time! S&L, insider trading, ENRON, Global Crossing, TYCO, internet bubble, wall street melt down, WEB 2.0 melt down. Sure, it is all the fault of someone getting something for nothing... like food for their kids.

You see, in America, people are finally getting wise to that garbage. Blame the workers, chase the woman using food stamps to see what kind of car she is driving... while we were being robbed blind to the tune of $billions... tens of $billions... hundreds of $billions!

That is why the Repubs and Conservatives got their butts handed to them in 2006 and 2008. We just ain't buying it anymore. Sadly, I doubt if my friends there blaming "Labor" can deal with something that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

Your American Cousin!

Lucent inherited a very tall and narrow public sector style managment hierachy from AT&T. When combined with the very French (need I say more?) Alcatel you have a top heavy structure where almost everyone is a manager. I'm often in situations where I'm alone on site doing a software install or acceptance testing and have half a dozen PMs phoning me for status updates. Way too many chiefs and not enough indians (no pun intended).

I propose a simple test for weeding out the people who are no longer needed. "Did you meet a customer this week?". If the answer is no then they're obviously not required. As for corporate functions like HR, finance etc, they're almost all pushed onto the backs of the employee via web apps these days.

As an ALU grunt on the front line I feel safer working from the customers lab than being a potential target for down sizing back in the office.