80,000 engineers to be absorbed in IT sector by 2010

Software industry body, Nasscom expects at least 70,000-80,000 engineering graduates who passed out in June 2009 and were offered jobs in their 5th and 6th semesters by TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, to get absorbed by March 2010. Not too long ago, there were apprehensions that the appointments of these tech grads could get deferred till 2011 in the aftermath of the global slowdown. However, the perception appears to have changed.

Speaking to the media, Nasscom Vice-President Sangeeta Gupta said, "There's some amount of pick-up in IT spending and clients have become active in the decision-making process. This augurs well for the IT industry and is likely to result in hiring by IT companies. Companies like TCS, Infosys and Accenture, among others, are expected to start honouring the offers they made. As a result, at least 70k-80k engineering graduates, who were issued offer letters, are expected to get absorbed by March 2010."

For instance, the country's biggest software firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) had made some 24,000 offers in 2008-09, according to its Q2 analyst call. The company had indicated that it would honour these offers this fiscal. In Q3, TCS is expected to absorb about 8,000-odd, and the balance, in the following quarter. Till Q2, the company had absorbed some 1,800 people.

Similarly, Infosys, in its Q2 earnings call, indicated that it would add 20,000 people instead of 18,000 indicated earlier. The additional 2,000 would be partly in BPO while the rest would make up laterals at Infosys Technologies.

Incidentally, Nasscom has urged member companies to recruit those who've completed their eighth semester to ensure that hiring is closer to the need of companies. For this fiscal, Nasscom has projected a mere 4-7 percent export growth. It is likely, that with IT sector showing signs of recovery, Nasscom will review the export target. "We can review the export target by end- December," she added.

McKinsey in its report titled 'Perspectives in the IT industry by 2020', has noted that with the current pace of reforms and expected constraints in talent and infrastructure supply, the exports component of the Indian IT industry is slated to reach $175 billion in revenues by 2020. The domestic component will contribute $50 billion in revenues by 2020, which is larger than the total export revenues for India now.

Agencies

Canada Ford plant to shutdown in 2011, layoff 1,400 jobs

US automaker Ford Motor Co. will shutter one of its manufacturing plants in Canada in 2011, a move that will cut 1,400 jobs, the Canadian Auto Workers said Friday.

As part of a cost-reduction agreement between the company's US headquarters and the CAW, the plant in St. Thomas, Ontario, will close in the third quarter of 2011, the powerful union said in a statement.

Some 1,400 employees will be dismissed, CAW spokeswoman Shannon Devine told AFP. Canadian media put the number of jobs eliminated at 1,600.

As part of the tentative agreement the union said it obtained a commitment by the US automaker to keep at least 10 percent of its North American production in Canada.

"During the negotiations, Ford threatened that if we didn't come to an agreement, the company would begin shifting investment out of Canada," said Ken Lewenza, president of the CAW.

"In today's globalized economy where companies attempt to bypass community commitments, it's crucial that we don't allow this to happen."

The agreement, which expires in September 2012, is expected to be voted on and approved Sunday by the CAW's 7,000 Ford workers in Canada.

The St. Thomas plant produces the Ford Crown Victoria -- a model routinely chosen by US police forces and New York taxis -- as well as the Mercury Grand Marquis.

Although Ford did not accept bailout money from the US government like Chrysler and General Motors did, the CAW said Ford followed the pattern set out earlier in the year by its US rivals to cut significant portions of their Canada operations as part of restructuring.

Chrysler and GM both filed for bankruptcy and received billions of dollars in US government aid. Canada's government also pumped billions of dollars into the companies as part of packages to keep their auto manufacturing operations here afloat.

As part of the new deal, the CAW agreed to a reduction in holidays and a requirement for workers to contribute to the company's pension fund at the rate of one dollar for every hour worked, Devine said.

Ford for its part made new production and investment commitments in several manufacturing locations in Canada, including production of "at least two new-generation vehicles in the next product cycle" at its Oakville plant outside Toronto.

"This footprint commitment was an important achievement for the union," Lewenza said.

But Ford stood firm on closure of the St. Thomas plant.

"Nothing was harder... than coming to the realization that regardless of whatever suggestions the union came up with to save the St. Thomas facility, Ford would be closing the plant," said Mike Vince, chairman of the CAW-Ford bargaining committee and president of CAW Local 200.

Ford committed to funding and opening a center to assist workers unemployed after the plant closure.

Agencies

iGate expands Whitefield campus; To hire 1,500 by 2010

iGate on Thursday inaugurated the fourth phase of its global delivery facility at its campus in Whitefield, Bangalore. The new facility, set up at a cost of Rs 65 crore, provides 115,000 sq ft of additional workspace and can seat 1,050 people.

Phaneesh Murthy, CEO of the outsourcing solutions company, said iGate plans to hire about 1,500 people in 2010. The $220-million company currently has around 3,500 employees in Bangalore.

Murthy said he expected IT budgets to be up 2-4% in 2010.

“Discretionary project spends are starting to happen. The pricing environment is largely stable,” he said.

iGate’s campus has in the past sought to differentiate itself through the adoption of a host of environment friendly measures. The latest phase makes further advances on this front. It has LED lighting throughout and the lighting is solar powered. There’s an ozone-friendly air conditioning system, organic waste converter and a wastewater recycling system.

“We also made special efforts to procure green IT equipment,” the company said. The company has taken on a carbon footprint estimation study to determine the green house gas (GHG) inventory across all its global delivery facilities in India, Australia and Mexico.

Agencies

Will $1-b BSNL outsourcing deal impact 30,000 jobs?

Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) is planning to outsource the management and maintenance of its towers and cable networks to compete more effectively with private players like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, which dominate the booming industry and also unlock the value of its assets, reports the Economic Times.

The deal, which could be worth more than $1 billion (Rs. 5,000 crore) over the next five years, might receive stiff resistance from about three lakh employees as it will impact close to 30,000 jobs. "The company plans to train and redeploy a significant section of these employees to marketing roles," informed two executives requesting anonymity, as many employees are expected to be transferred to the IT firms that win the outsourcing deal.

Through this deal, BSNL will outsource more than 50,000 towers and over one lakh kilometers of optic fibre cable. "The telecom company is in process of finalizing tender conditions for inviting bids for the contract," said these executives.

"The move will help BSNL unlock the value from its towers and passive infrastructure as the once monopoly tries to play catch up with private rivals," said BK Syngal, Senior Principal, Dua Consulting.

"Successful bidders for this contract can share company's networks with private players for a fee and this could result in a revenue boost for BSNL," added Syngal, who is also a former Chairman of VSNL (now Tata Communications).

Reliance Communications had formed a joint venture with Franco American networks major Alcatel-Lucent last year and outsourced the management of its GSM and CDMA networks and infrastructure such as optic fibre cable in a deal worth $500 million over a five year period. The deal had crossed $750 million mark in July 2009.

Bharti Airtel also entered into a $500 million joint venture with Alcatel-Lucent to manage its landline and broadband business in April 2009. Around 4,000 Airtel employees were transferred to this new venture, which is a front runner to bag another $500 million contract from Airtel to manage and maintain its 80,000 kilometers intercity optic fibre cable network.

BSNL had recently postponed plans to hive off its towers and other related infrastructure into a separate company. The company felt it would be difficult to unlock value by merely hiving off its infrastructure and listing it due to falling valuations for the tower sector, said the executives.

Agencies/Economic Times

IT services deal signed between GE, Mahindra Satyam

Mahindra Satyam today said it has received an extension of its multi-million dollar contract with GE for next three years January 1, 2010.

GE, which is among the top five customers of Mahindra Satyam for over a decade now, gets support in the specialised areas of Application Development Maintenance, Business Intelligence and engineering services, Satyam Mahindra said in a statement.

"We thank the leadership at GE, for having reposed their confidence in us, and reinforce our resolve to excel in our deliverables to our esteemed partner, for years to come," Mahindra Satyam Global Account Executive Arvind Malhotra said.

GE has signed a similar contract with 11 other vendors. "GE recognizes the support extended over the years by Mahindra Satyam, and their commitment to delivery excellence, even during trying times," GE GDC Leader Steve Morrison said.

Satyam management had been in constant dialogue with its major clients, including GE and others to continue working with it.

"Mahindra Satyam has gained 32 new customers in the last four months," a top official had said earlier.

"Some of the large clients we had lost earlier are coming back and are reassigning new business," Atul Kunwar, the company's president of the Middle East, Europe, India and Asia Pacific regions, said on the sidelines of an industry conference.

The company, currently has about 420 clients, he said, compared with 480 in January before it was left battling for survival after Satyam's founder revealed India's biggest corporate fraud.

Satyam was acquired by Tech Mahindra in an auction in April and subsequently renamed. The number of employees the company has on reserve has come down to 7,000 from 8,500 in July, Kunwar said.

"With the business improving and new deals coming in, we have slowly started taking in employees from the virtual pool."

Agencies

Ford Motors on a hiring spree in India

Ford Motors has signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government for the $500-million expansion programme at its manufacturing facility at Maraimalai Nagar, a city suburb.

As part of its plan to expand its manufacturing facility in Chennai, car manufacturer Ford India has announced that it will hire 1,000 people. The expansion of the manufacturing unit will be completed by next year.

According to a company official, the company has already hired 400 people and the rest will be recruited by next year. On Thursday, the company signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government for the expansion by setting up new engine manufacturing units. As a part of its expansion plans, the company would double its vehicle production capacity to two lakh units per year. A new engine production unit with a capacity of 2.5 lakh is also being set up at a total invest cost of $500 million announced early last year.

The agreement was signed by Industries Secretary Farooqui on behalf of the government and Ford Managing Director Michael Boneham before Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and U.S. Ambassador Tim Roemer among other officials.

Agencies

Twenty seven lose job every hour in America

Despite the US economy showing indications of recovery, the global job market remains gloomy, with companies laying off at least 27 employees every hour to cut costs.

With companies continuing to reduce their headcount in their efforts to tackle the downturn, around 13,000 jobs have been slashed so far in September by some of the leading global firms most of them headquartered in the US.

Job losses of about 12,900 have been witnessed in just 20 days of this month, translating into an average of 645 people being laid off per day. In turn, the toll comes to at least 27 people losing jobs per hour.

The lay-offs are happening across almost all the sectors from pharma to software to refinery, among others.

Most of the job cuts happened in the United States, which has already seen a staggering 5,50,000 Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the first week of September.

Last week, US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said the recession is “very likely over,” while America’s retail sales data strengthened on hopes that recovery from the economic downturn was progressing.

Bernanke, however, said that recovery would be slow and it would take time to create jobs.

September’s job cut wave was led by pharma major Eli Lilly & Company, which will slash around 5,500 jobs globally by 2011.

While in terms of numbers, diversified technology leader Danaher came next with 3,300job cuts followed by agricultural company Monsanto, which would reduce its headcount by 8% of its total workforce or about 1,800 people.

Defence major BAE Systems is also planning to cut 1,116 jobs across plants in the country and may shut down one of its facilities by the end of 2012.

Moreover, US-based computer maker Dell is eliminating 500 people while Deere & Company is reducing its workforce by 367 manufacturing employees.

Other companies which announced job cuts include — Valero Energy, which slashed the jobs of 150 employees and 100 contractors, HJ Heinz’s frozen food arm fires 65 workers in Idaho.

Agencies

Infosys opens training centre in Mysore

It was a wistful Sonia Gandhi who loved her day out on Tuesday. Happy to have “bunked school”, she said she was charmed by the environment, the buildings, trees, flowers and atmosphere at the Infosys campus.

Said the lady who keeps her Congress school in order, “...If I may share a secret, there is another reason for me to be happy to be with you this afternoon, this visit is giving me an opportunity to bunk my school — politics — for a few hours. I honestly want to say I wish I could bunk a few days to be here with you all!” She brought the house down.

The Congress chief was in Mysore to inaugurate the Infosys Global Education Centre-II, which will be a hothouse for next-generation IT professionals. “Social harmony, secure frontiers and communal amity are the need of the hour to create a conducive atmosphere for creation of wealth. Governments should ensure these elements for wealth creators to strive and grow,” she asserted.

Appreciating the efforts of Infosys chief N R Narayana Murthy and his peers for struggling hard and building an empire like Infosys, Sonia said he and his colleagues have shown the world that India can not only lead the IT field, but also guide the rest of the world. “Serious efforts, hard work and determination have made them accomplish this task of building GEC, which is a monument of sorts, withworld class facilities to train IT professionals,” she said.

Sonia said the foundation stone for modern technology was laid way back in 1985 by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, with the establishment of an earth station. Recollecting Rajiv’s efforts to take the country’s development in science and technology to new heights, Sonia said many in politics had flayed Rajiv Gandhi and were skeptical about his efforts. But he has now been proved right. “He knew that development of communication and transport facilities would lead India into a new world of development,” she said. Then, a telephone was a luxury, now every village has a public call office and telephone network.

Agencies

Omniture to be acquired by Adobe for $1.8 billion

Adobe Systems Inc plans to pay $1.8 billion for fast-growing business software maker Omniture Inc as the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat looks to turn around declining sales.

Adobe, which announced the deal on Tuesday as it reported lower quarterly sales and profit, has been struggling over the past year as the recession hurt technology spending and customers declined to upgrade older versions of its programs.

The acquisition would give Adobe a new stream of revenue to offset that decline. Omniture charges customers fees based on monthly website traffic, so sales are less sensitive to economic swings than Adobe.

"There is no way Adobe can grow organically. This is a smart move," said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.

Advertising agencies and companies use Omniture's software to analyze how consumers use websites. It is the biggest provider of such services, competing with Google Inc and other smaller players. The vast majority of all professional websites are built with Adobe's Creative Suite line of design software.

Janney Montgomery Scott analyst Sasa Zorovic said Adobe's customers will not necessarily choose to subscribe to Omniture's services simply because its technology is embedded into Creative Suite.

"It will require some selling, but I think the opportunity is there," he said.

Adobe, whose software competes with products from Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc, agreed to pay $21.50 per share in cash for Omniture, a 24 percent premium over Omniture's closing price on Tuesday.

Omniture shares soared 25 percent to $21.74 in after-hours trading, while Adobe shares slid 4.5 percent to $34.06.

The deal would be Adobe's second-largest acquisition after its $3.4 billion purchase of Macromedia in December 2005.

Omniture would become a unit of Adobe, headed by its current chief executive, Josh James. Adobe said the deal should close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 and would add to Adobe's per-share earnings in fiscal 2010.

Adobe said it would be paid a fee of $64 million by Omniture if the deal is terminated, according to a regulatory filing.

Adobe also reported on Tuesday that fiscal third-quarter earnings, excluding items, fell to 35 cents per share from 50 cents per share a year ago. That beat Wall Street's average forecast by a penny, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Second-quarter sales fell 21 percent to $697.5 million, but beat analysts' average forecast of $686.2 million. For the fiscal fourth quarter, not counting any effect of the Omniture deal, Adobe forecast revenue and earnings, excluding items broadly in line with analysts' estimates.

Agencies

$215 b losses for UK banks, says Moody’s report

UK banks are less than half way through posting £240 billion ($398 billion) of losses on loans and securities, a reflection of the country’s economic weakness, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

British banks are likely to record losses of at least £130 billion, in addition to £110 billion lost since the beginning of the credit crisis in 2007, Moody’s said in a report on Monday.

The company expects the sustained weakness of the UK macroeconomic environment to feed through into higher loan arrears with ensuing pressure on profitability and capital, it said.

British taxpayers have provided about £1.4 trillion of support to banks, becoming the biggest shareholder of Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Lloyds Banking Group, while seeking to shore up capital eroded by writedowns. British banks have raised about £120 billion of capital from the beginning of the credit crisis to mid-2009, Moody’s said. “We have been underweight on the banks for some time”, said Dave Bradbury who helps manage $6 billion at Canada Life in London.

Agencies

StanChart to open KPO in Bangalore; Hire 2,000 staff

Foreign lender Standard Chartered Bank plans to hire around 2,000 employees in India in the current financial year, a top official said.

The bank currently has around 8,000 employees in the country.

The banking major has also plans to open an office of its knowledge process outsourcing network -- Scope International-- in Bangalore by October, StanChart's Chief Operating Officer, India and South Asia Sreeram Iyer told reporters here.

At present, Scope International has offices in Malaysia, China and Chennai.

It employs over 7,000 employees in its Chennai unit.

Agencies

Indian IT firms see return of hiring, salary hikes

Many were predicting six months back that the Indian IT industry would be entering its twilight zone, but now there are indications that these predictions may go wrong. Several IT companies have restarted hiring and are giving salary hikes to their employees.

"That phase of drastic downturn is behind us," says S Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). "There's stability now. The deal pipeline is encouraging, but the time it takes to close a deal remains long. And many customers are yet to fully open up their IT budgets," Ramadorai added.

While IT majors like TCS, Wipro and Cognizant have started promotions and salary hikes, Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys feels that things are looking better now, however the company prefers to wait and watch before giving any promotions or hikes, reports The Economic Times.

The recovery of the defamed Satyam Computer Services under the new owner Mahindra Satyam has also proved to be a boon for nearly 28,000 employees across all levels, with the restoration of the variable pay. The variable component is 10 percent at the entry level, 20 percent at the middle level and 30 percent at the senior management level. IT bellwether Wipro has lifted its freeze on hikes and promotions, at least for some employees.

Manpower supply company TeamLease, which saw its open positions drop significantly from 10,000 a month to 800 post-recession, has in the past couple of months seen those numbers rise to 3,500.

With the current trend companies have also started showing more confidence in the Indian market. Information infrastructure company, EMC has announced that it will invest $1.5 billion in India over the next five years, a level of investment from a single company that the sector has not seen in close to two years. Partha Iyengar, Regional Research Director in Gartner India, says the number of calls the company gets from customers for directions and consulting has gone up sharply in the last 3-4 months.

The Indian IT industry was one of the worst hit by the recession on account of its dependence on international markets - especially the U.S. and European markets. The freeze on IT budgets by companies around the world meant that new orders dried up. Industry association Nasscom initially forecast that IT exports would grow by 22-24 percent in 2008-09, but as the recession deepened, this was revised down to 16 percent. For this fiscal, the association has projected a 4-7 percent growth to $48-50 billion.

Agencies

Cisco expands campus; Likely to increase headcount

Cisco will be adding two additional office blocks totaling a floor area of 70,000 square feet. The expansion will happen around its 2.1 million square feet campus at Cessna Business Park on the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore.

This expansion might be by far the biggest in the commercial space market in this region in the last one year. Although Cisco declined to comment on the expansion, it issued a statement saying, "We have designated Bangalore as our Globalization Centre East and indicated that we will have 10,000-12,000 employees based here over the next three to five years. The idea is for 20 percent of the top talent in Cisco to be based here." At present, Cisco has 4000 Indian employees.

Agencies

Does TCS plan to hire 25,000 jobs globally?

In a move that could bring a smile to many faces, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced that it will hire 25,000 people globally in 2009, with 90 percent of them in India alone. Though the number is bigger when compared to the hiring these days, it is less than last year when TCS appointed around 35,000 people.

With this recruitment drive, TCS also plans to expand its presence into the tier-II cities in India. "We will be hiring 25,000 people this year, which means roughly 25 lakh square feet of work space required and, therefore, we need to grow outside the metros. Tier-II cities are our only focus for expansion in the country as the top rung are clogged and saturated," said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice-President and Head of Government Industry Solutions unit at TCS.

Following this hiring spree, the total global manpower of TCS would go up to more than 1.8 lakh. This will put the IT services provider among large private Indian employers like Tata Steel, which has the total employee strength of two lakh. Going forward, the company, which has an estimated 32 percent market share, plans to cash in on the Indian government's plan to invest Rs. 40,000 crore on IT services.

Currently, 70 percent of the IT segment's revenue is from India, while the rest comes from the U.S., Latin America, Africa and South East Asian countries. However, the revenue contribution from Indian government businesses to the total company revenue of $6 billion is less than five percent, which the company intends to increase to more than 10 percent in the next three years.

Agencies

$17 bn software exports for India's IT state

Defying the global meltdown, Karnataka earned $17 billion (Rs.74,929 crore) from software exports last fiscal (2008-09) as against Rs.60,800 crore the previous year, registering a 23 per cent growth in rupee terms and 21.5 per cent in dollar terms.

"The export performance of the IT industry in the state, especially Bangalore, demonstrates the knowledge sector remains unaffected by the global meltdown and decline in IT spending overseas," state Information Minister Katta Subbramanya Naidu told reporters here.

As India's tech hub, Bangalore accounted for Rs.72,506 crore or 97 per cent of the state's total exports, while the remaining Rs.2,423 crore are from tier-two cities such as Mysore, Mangalore and Hubli-Dharwad, registering 45 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth.

India's combined software exports -- spanning services, products and business process outsourcing (BPO) -- grew 21 per cent to $50 billion (Rs.2.22 trillion) as against $41 billion (Rs.1.84 trillion) in 2007-08.

Karnataka accounted for 34 per cent of the country's total software exports last fiscal.

"The growth is substantial especially in the current economic scenario. The state retains its top position in the sector, including exports," Naidu said.

Naidu said the state had set a target of $20 billion (Rs.1,000 billion) this fiscal.

Incidentally, the industry's representative body, National Association of Software Services and Companies (Nasscom), has forecast India's software exports this fiscal to be around $48-50 billion.

According to R. Rajalakshmi, director of the Bangalore chapter of the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Karnataka's software export revenues are from the 1,200 firms registered with the STPI and software-related special economic zones.

Eighty-four software units will be set up in the state this fiscal, including 35 with foreign equity, two Indian majors and 47 small and medium enterprises, with a combined investment of Rs.465 crore.

In spite of voluntary attrition and lay-offs in the BPO sector, employment in the software industry in the state increased by 34,000 to 554,000 in 2008-09.

Agencies

Will Nissan unit shift from UK to Chennai lead to job losses?

Japanese major Nissan has decided to shift the entire production of its small car Micra from the UK and relocate it to India. After production of the Micra begins here, Nissan plans to manufacture four more models in India, involving a total investment of over Rs 2,000 crore.

The move underlines the rush among automakers to rationalise production costs and move to locations that offer the best value and quality. “We have decided to shift the production of the Micra compact car from our UK plant and manufacture it in India at our upcoming factory at Oragadam, near Chennai,” Nissan India MD and CEO Kiminobu Tokuyama told TOI here.

The company’s Chennai plant will start production from May next year, and the export markets would be catered to from autumn, Tokuyama said. Nissan, he said, plans to meet Micra’s requirements for the entire European region as well as some other markets like Middle-East from the Chennai plant. “We plan to initially start with export volumes of 1.1 lakh units, which would be gradually scaled up to 1.8 lakh units as demand goes up,” Tokuyama said. But what has prompted the company to take such a step, uprooting manufacturing presence from an established base and shifting to an all-new location. “There are many benefits to count in India, and these include a high-quality vendor base that is also cost effectiveness, leading to globally-competitive pricing,” Tokuyama said. Also, the technological skills in India are of a high quality, he added.

Nissan’s move points to the growing importance of India in small car manufacturing, which was initiated by the Government by way of lower manufacturing tax (excise duty) on them. The rising scale of small car production in India also sweetens the deal in favour of the country as component makers have improved on quality and scale, making them a safe and a reliable bet. Lower wages in the market, and relatively high engineering skills, is another big advantage that attracts companies.

Times of India/Agencies

Will Accenture layoff 336 executives in 2009?

Accenture, a business consulting and outsourcing company is likely to lay off around 336 senior-level managers as part of a broad-based restructuring effort. William Green, CEO, Accenture said, "We are taking this step to position Accenture better for both short-term and long-term economic improvement growth and profitability."

The company has about 177,000 employees globally, of which 4,800 are senior-executive employees. The lay off is likely to be completed by the end of November 2009. The company said that the reductions would cost about $247 million in the fourth quarter, which ends on August 31. Out of $247 million, about $128 million of the charge is for severance and related costs of workforce reductions at the senior executive level and $119 million linked to reduction of excess office space. The company said that the space reductions would be completed by the end of August, while the job cuts are expected to be completed in the first quarter of fiscal 2010.

According to a projection by Goldman Sachs Group, global technology spending will decline by eight percent this year. Accenture said that it continued to expect net revenues for the fourth quarter in the range of $5 billion to $5.2 billion with operating margins between 13.4 percent and 13.7 percent. But the company also added that the restructuring charges will likely reduce its earnings per share for both the fourth quarter and the full year by 24 cents.

The company had generated net revenue of $23.39 billion for the fiscal ended August 31, 2008. In the last one year, the stock of Accenture has climbed by 11 percent on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Agencies

Will Cisco layoff another 600+ jobs?

Another round of employees at Cisco Systems reportedly got pink slips Thursday, as the company laid off several hundred employees as part of its plan to cut costs and realign its business.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that between 600 and 700 Cisco employees were laid off at the company's headquarters in San Jose, Calif. The company also cut jobs at branch offices in other parts of the U.S. The Wall Street Journal cited sources close to the company.

A spokesman for the company told the Wall Street Journal that Cisco was "doing everything possible to minimize the impact on employees affected by the limited restructuring."

Like all companies, Cisco, which makes networking equipment that runs the Internet and provides communications for large companies, has seen sales slump as a result of the global recession. The company said earlier this year that it would likely cut between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs as it realigned its business to focus on newer more profitable business segments. The cuts were expected to be completed at the end of the company's fiscal year, which ends this month.

In February, Cisco said it cut about 250 jobs at its San Jose headquarters. Cisco had 66,558 employees at the end of April. Despite the cuts, Cisco's CEO John Chambers has said publicly that he believes the worst of the recession is over. But he noted that it could take some time before spending returns to high levels. Wall Street will be watching the company's next earnings call very carefully to see signs that the bottom has been reached. Cisco will report fiscal fourth quarter and end of year earnings on August 5 after the market closes.

CNet.com

Has Siemens IT arm sacked over 500 as Union claims?

IT firm Siemens Information Systems, a unit of German conglomerate Siemens, today said it has laid off 128 employees as part of its cost cutting measures, debunking union's claim that 500 employees had lost jobs.

The IT-ITeS union UNITES India said the number of employees laid off by the company could be around 500. It added that Siemens is laying off its employees in Bangalore violating the Industrial Dispute Act.

When contacted SISL spokesperson said, "As a part of our cost-cutting initiatives, we have released only 128 employees from one of the business units."

UNITES Professionals India General Secretary Karthik Shekhar said, "The figures provided by the company does not include the number of employees who were on contract. In the last one month, the company has laid off more than 128 employees."

SISL has over 5,500 employees in the country. The union has also written to the headquarters of the firm in Germany.

About compensating the employees, the company said it has already compensated the affected employees higher than the contractual terms.
AGENCIES

Agencies

Will GM coninue to layoff another 4,000 jobs?

After a night spent signing mounds of paperwork authorizing the transfer of cash, real estate, technology and other property, GM attorneys are expected to officially usher the new General Motors out of bankruptcy protection on Friday and onto a path toward a hopefully profitable future.

Once the world's largest and most powerful automaker, the troubled company is expected to emerge cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans. Spurred on by the Obama administration's support, the process took just 40 days, even slightly quicker than crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC's 42-day timeframe.

On Thursday, a bankruptcy court order allowing GM to sell most of its assets to a new company went into effect. The new GM, 61% owned by the US government, will face a brutally competitive global automotive market in the middle of the worst sales slump in a quarter-century.

At a press conference on Friday, CEO Fritz Henderson will announce that GM will cut another 4,000 white-collar jobs, including 450 top executives. The company still employs 88,000 people in the US and 235,000 worldwide.

Agencies