Circuit City Lays Off "Over Paid" Workers

Hasn't Circuit City heard of pay cuts? Why fire People and then give them a chance to get there jobs back at a lower wage? Are they going to use this window to hire wetbacks?

With all the reductions in retail outlet stores for computers and software a person might come to the conclusion that Vista might have a hard time finding its way onto home computers. Just my observation and opinion.   

I wonder what Microsofts take on this is? HA!   

no mexicans would not work that cheap...try to get one of em to work for you for less than 10 dollars an hour and the will laugh at you..i asked several in front of homedepot before...Circuit city is dropping the wages too about 8 dollars an hour...So good luck getting quality service there..It was difficult before..now it will be really hard...  

Here's another thought on these closures and reductions, usually they come about due to what is commonly called market adjustment or restructure. Granted the store fronts are not only selling computers but are we seeing a change from people buying computers to building their own or buying online?   

Another one bites the dust due to BUSH! He needs to go.

I wonder if the phrase "lower-cost workers" could be part-time employess that wouldn't be eligible for benefits? Most business in the service and retail sector hire that way to keep costs down.   

As far as Circuit City's actions, I believe the NFL does it on a reqular basis so they can stay under a pay cap. Oh, did I hear you say that's different?   

That's exactly it, and I think the whole thing is total b.s. How are people supposed to be able to live and support themselves and their families with part-time work at low wages and no benefits? But that's ok...as long as the people at the top get to drive around in their Mercedes and live in 5000 square foot mansions...who cares how the people they employee are struggling paycheck to paycheck without being able to provide medical care for their children.

Bebi Bulma - Understand your point and there will always be people to fill part time jobs. Those that care about their future and have the desire do something about it, like getting an education or learning a trade, even while they maybe working at one or more part time jobs. I think the stores in question are public not private meaning there are stock holders, wonder what they think?   

Mark Snyder - Help me understand how Bush had anything to do with the store closing in Canada? That's not too clear to me.   

this is not an unusual case, it is happening all over the world as corperate greed and the fight for the almighty dollar gets stronger and stronger. the problem with bringing in low cost workers is also low cost skills and with that productivity suffers and quality control goes out the window. I dont believe this is a 'bush' problem, more so the fat cats at the top of these companies who make the decisions and their advisors who give them horror stories everyday. like i said this is a world wide problem and not likely to go away anytime soon.

Nimbin - Like the other replies you make good points. I do take exception to the reference that low cost workers bring low cost skills and that productivity and quaility control goes out the window.

I may be cut from a different stock, as the saying goes, but since I'm pushing 60 yrs old I had the opportunity to work in/at several part time jobs. My desire to do a good job and learn the task that the job entailed were important to me. I also had a father who sat me down when I first started working and explained that I carried the family name and I was not to bring disrespect to it. Don't take that to mean that he didn't want me to stand up for myself.

Maybe the children of the world are being brought up differently these days.   

ello philly, there are always exceptions to every rule, i should have made my point clearer by saying that this does not mean all low cost workers, i meant no disrespect to you and any others. but history does backup my words in some ways. i understand there are highly skilled people out there who are willing to work for less than they deserve just to have a job and be earning, but there are also a lot of unskilled people out there as well, these are the ones i mean, willing to work for nothing and the get what you pay for mentallity applies here. i apologise to all who are nopt in the same boat

Nimbin - Your post was fine. I think what I was trying to point out in all my replies is that in the bigger picture there really is no one person or entity that is totally responsible for the situation at hand. Whether we want to belive it or not.   

My personal theroy about life is we are all too willing to take an aspirn for the headach in stead of trying to figure out was is giving us the headach.   

There's are alot of sayings you come across in life, one that holds true is "Be careful for what you wish for, you just might get it." I'm a firm beliver in the problems we face today in our society are just because of that.   

god their service sucked before, and their employees knew nothing about the products the sold. now theyre going for even lower wage employees? awesome.

Happening here in Oz thanks to lil Johnny's new Workplace Agreements legislation.....

Companies are now terminating long term employees and replacing them with offshore imports....otherwise they're shutting up shop and relocating offshore to take advantage of cheap labour in Asia. Many Aussie jobs have already fallen by the wayside ......and many more will follow under the current political/corporate climates.

i agree starkers, just today we had to ring a finance company and got some indian guy who could barely speak english, we got so frustrated we eventually asked him to transfer us to somebody who could speak the language properly. this from a company that proudly proclaims itself to be australian made, what a joke

Circuit City's always sucked anyways and these employees were being overpaid for their positions. This is more about cleaning up the mistakes of shitty management than it is corporate getting greedy. They were over-generous with their wages and while it's nice to see managers who take care of their employees, you can't always disregard the best interests of the company. Without the company these people don't have jobs anyways. It's unfortunate for the 8% of the employees affected by this, but there's still 92% of your workforce with futures to think about as well.

Did you know McDonald's has plans (if they haven't done it already) to outsource it's drive-thru windows to India. The person taking your order isn't even going to be in the same country let alone the same building where your food is actually made. If you think outsourced tech support lines are frustrating just wait until you see the rage that comes out of middle class America not being able to order their big mac with extra large fries.

I use to work for  made $5.15 an hour for 7 months (less the minimum wage at the time). I couldn't stand it and I so I quite. The funny thing is, their selection sucked, they were over priced, they we're slower then anything getting the items from warehouse, and they taught us employees to push insurance on the most retarded things (who wants to spend 10 bucks to insure a 25 dollar item) and to top it off, sell their crappy, bound to fail Divx DVD player. Anyone remember Divx? Yeah, imagine a guy who sells small electronics (CD players, batteries, alarm clocks) being told that they must offer a proprietary DVD player with insurance to every customer they sell too or they will be fired. Yeah, I hope goes out of business.

 

starkers & Nimblin - It's happened in the U.S. as well though mostly only the manufacturing of goods has moved.

I hate to say this but usually the labor costs associated with manufacturing are the killer. Yes the worker needs to earn a wage that allows them to live and to benefit from their hard work.

An example would be buying a car. Growing up you could buy a automobile under $3,000 U.S., a really expenisve one might run up to $5,000 U.S.. Now you're lucky to find something that you consider basic transportation under $15,000 U.S.. Is there that much more material used now in making a car, no. In fact the automobile today because of light weight materials used is less safe and durable then when we grew up. Remember I'm an old fart so this goes back to the late 50's and early 60's.

The increased costs of goods eventually worked it's way into the retail and service sectors. The workers needed higher wages to buy the manufacture goods that had increased in price. Then a new cycle started with every increse in wages the cost of goods and services increased. During the mid to late 70's auto workers in the U.S. couldn't afford to buy the automobile they were helping to build, now that just wasn't right.

Oh crap, I got carried away again sorry folks. I think it's time to step away from the keyboard and watch the sunrise.   

I don't think circuit city pays their workers to have a descent living. That makes me look at myself and stop complaining.

Now I feel bless I have a good job and feel safe.

Thank God

  

Eventually, and maybe not too far away the continued push for a leaner meaner workforce getting paid less than they were has to backfire. The number of people able and willing to buy the goods and services these companies provide has to fall, so while it may have been good for the first company to do it, once all companies have, then whats left? Sure some people will do well, some people always do, but the bulk of people have pretty much just got by (in western countries, I wont mention africa or other third world places)

What happenned to old Henry fords ideal of producing good stuff with a workforce that could afford to buy it?

Labor Unions.

I've read the replies here and they seem to go willy nilly in all direstions. First off, Circus Shitty does not manufacture anything. It's basically a warehouse operation with a retail front end stuck on. Their "stores" are nothing more than showrooms with order takers. Even their web site is a searchable database on line catalog. Best Buy is the same. Adding lots of glitz doesn't change what you are. I appologize if I hurt anyone's feelings, but lets not trump up reality.

Recently (December) I was in the market for a laptop. I searched high and low at all the major players (New Egg, BB, CC etc.) and not a few minor ones. I came away struck by the fact that Cicus Shitty was very obviously having trouble staying competitive. Their selection was poor, on line and in store, and the sheer number of "out of stock" "unavailable" items listed on the web would have sent me into a selling frenzy if I owned their stock. Remember, this was December, a peak selling time for most retailers.

They are not a service industry either. Their computer repair operations are not on site (except for some minor repairs; 20 20 did an expose' on this several years ago showing how inept they were even at that). Why do you think they sell service plans? They get a percentage of that market, and get price reductions on their next vendor order.

The bottom line is they are struggling to remain competitive and need to cut costs to boost available cash for inventory. What's insideous about this, is it's public, and sets a trend for this type of operation. Best Buy does it with a little twist that has them in hot water with a lot of states attorney generals; advertise an item at a sale price, have limited quantities available, post out of stock/back ordered signs and emails for on line orders; wait until the sale expires before restocking or 30 days for on line orders (automatically cancelled after 30 days) and restock at the original price ( I verified this with Western Digital on availability of a hard drive BB carried). That way they can retain their niche facade of being product knowledge experts by retaining a higher paid sales staff.

Remember these guys are not experts in the merchandise they sell. They never were. They are the guys that forced the smaller "expert" shops out of business with the "big box store" concept. They struggle and tank when the real "big box" guys like Wal Mart and Sam's Club start carrying their merchandise lines. Sam's Club had lines of HP laptops for example that CC and BB etc did not. Smart move on HP's part. But when CC and BB couldn't move their flagship lines, ta da, Sam's Club now has access to the "HP Store" (HP web site tailored for indivdual retailers, think web hosting). Sam's Club and Walmart are better at mass merchandising (not advertising) and have a bigger bank roll. And they don't pretend to be product knowledge experts or tech support. They simply sell what you want to buy.

Now, yes I feel bad some good sales people are getting screwed by corporate America once again, but that's the name of the game in sales, buying and selling. What a concept.

In Australia.....government legislation that allows employers to stick it to workers as they see fit/wish.

With the lower end of the socio economic scale constantly on the rise here, with people being forced out of their jobs or to work for much, much less thanks to lil Johnny's warped sense of fair play, more and more people are being priced out of not just luxury items but basic necessities of life.......


Even some of our (former) middle class are barely living above the poverty line thanks to the greed of banks and corporations....the gov't not acting to keep some semblance of balance and stop the bracket creep between the haves and have nots getting out of control.

I shop Newegg (online). Circuit City feels like I'm in the middle of a trading pit.