14 DAY TRIAL // Showing that the recession is still alive and well, Philips is now in the position where it has to reduce its personnel in order to decrease operating costs, seeing as how its profits plummeted massively in the third quarter.
We've passed the first half of October, which is the first month of the fourth quarter of 2011, so those companies whose financial updates haven't been done have to hurry up and say what is what.
Philips didn't precisely issue a press release on the matter, but that doesn't mean market watchers and such don't have their eyes and ears peeled anyway.
As it happens, Philips doesn't have anything good to say, and that would be putting it lightly.
Basically, the company's profits were so bad during the July-September period that the company decided to lay off some of its employees.
The number of people slated to be let go isn't small either, reflecting just how badly Philips is doing, compared to a year ago.
All in all, about 4,500 people will have to look for other job opportunities, which isn't good news, especially in today's economical conditions.
The depreciation of the Euro is one of the causes, though the real exclamation mark is the fall, more like collapse, of profits.
Philips made 85% less profits than in the third quarter of 2010 with the net sum being of EUR76 million (about as much as US$104 million).
This is the latest in a series of such layoffs, as HP also had to recently disband a whole division, the one concerned with webOS.
In fact, the last webOS stores closed over the past two days, with most of the people working in that division being let go.
One can only wonder what else will happen if the economy continues to struggle like this. There is only so much decline the world can take after all.