More AOL job loss

The AOL transition from online access provider to online advertising is making waves and the latest one has dumped 2,000 jobs. This is in addition to last year’s 5,000 employee lay offs where AOL said would work to boost traffic to its ad-supported Web sites by giving away AOL e-mail accounts, software and other features once reserved for paying subscribers.

Employees at AOL's Dulles, Va., location have been speaking in hushed tones for weeks that big layoffs were coming. Last week speculation intensified when employees reported seeing large pallets of empty cardboard shipping boxes arrive at an AOL warehouse.

AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco told employees

"This realignment will allow us to increase investment in high-growth areas of the company -- as an example, we added hundreds of people this year through acquisitions -- while scaling back in areas with less growth potential or those that aren't core to our business."

Last year's lay offs were mostly in customer-service and marketing as AOL opted to stop producing and distributing its infamous free trial discs. The latest cuts were expected to affect employees across the board. While more reduction in staff is expected by year's end, severance packages are to include at least four months' pay. In addition, AOL recently announced it was moving its headquarters to New York to be closer to the media advertising industry.

Last month, AOL announced that it was consolidating its advertising operations to share innovations across the company and help potential advertisers more easily buy ads across AOL properties and third-party sites that have become part of the AOL network through various acquisitions.

Shares in AOL LLC's parent company, Time Warner Inc., (Charts, Fortune 500) dropped 17 cents to $18.81 in Monday trading.

SOURCE: CNN

U.S. Department of Labor denies

Intel request to help employees they will lay off in August
Source: Computer World

Summary
June 27, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Intel Corp. plans to lay off 800 workers from a chip-making plant in Colorado by August, after Marvell Semiconductor Inc. began ordering those parts from another supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC).
Intel learned of Marvell's decision to find a new supplier around January, and warned its workers that month that it planned to sell the Colorado Springs plant, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. He declined to say how much revenue Intel will lose when the contract ends.

Intel plans to offer severance packages to its workers beginning in early August. The company also applied for a federal grant to help those workers learn new skills and find jobs, but the U.S. Department of Labor denied the request, he said.

Now Intel is appealing the government's action, and asking the department to reconsider its decision to withhold a grant from its Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. Under the TAA, the U.S. government gives aid to workers who lose their jobs through increased imports, providing them training, job search and relocation allowances.

Marvell is struggling with its own problems, including a delisting threat by the Nasdaq stock exchange for failing to file quarterly reports for the last two terms of 2006, or its 2006 annual report. The company is also restating past results, after finding in May that CEO Sehat Sutardja and other top executives had illegally backdated stock options to increase their value.