More recession Stories

layoffs firing cost cutting

TeliaSonera’s revenues and subscriber base aren’t budging, but the Nordic carrier claims its costs are skyrocketing. In an effort to realign its business with new mobile data realities, the carrier said it will lay off 7 percent of its workforce over two years. Read more »

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Telework may have obvious benefits, but the number of remote workers isn’t exactly soaring. In fact, according to some recent studies, the growth in telecommuting is actually slowing. Many explanations are possible, but maybe the simplest is best: The terrible economy has everyone scared. Read more »

will an economic recovery kill coworking

Remote work has boomed during the recession as job seekers look beyond traditional office-based gigs and companies embrace any opportunity to cut costs. That boom in nontraditional work has fed enthusiasm for coworking spaces. But will this enthusiasm outlast the tough economic times? Read more »

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Jenga used under CC license courtesy of Flickr user foolstopzanet

With Europe’s currency on the brink of collapse, is there anything startups and investors can do to avoid risking their businesses? We asked some of the continent’s top venture capitalists what they are doing to try and sidestep the crisis. Read more »

cloud

How exactly did the recession affect remote work – were employers spoiled for choice and reluctant to allow flexibility? Did lean economic times increase the number of workers looking for remote gigs? WebWorkerDaily spoke to Sara Sutton Fell, the founder and CEO of FlexJobs, to find out: Read more »

As the stimulus and the recession both leave marks on the cleantech industry, cleantech investors, along with entrepreneurs, are adjusting to a new landscape. And CMEA Capital is one venture capital firm that seems to be navigating it successfully, so far. The company backed A123Systems, the […] Read more »

Zucker Outlines Comcast/NBCU Transition Team; the “Operational Transition Team” will be led by Salil Mehta, NBCU’s president of business operations, strategy and development, and Joe Donnelly, CFO of Comcast’s programming group. (Multichannel News) Sony to Use RealD Technology in 3-D TV Sets in 2010; the maker […] Read more »

This week I’ve been speculating on the Future of Work and the types of skills that might be required. However, hindsight can provide useful clues to the future, so it’s important to reflect on existing behavior in order to determine where we’re headed. Between April and […] Read more »

Recession Presents Opportunities for Auto, Battery Makers: Battery company and aspiring electric car maker BYD Auto and Tata Motors, maker of the ultra-efficient Tata Nano, are part of a larger trend of cost-cutting companies in China and India that are finding opportunities to expand into foreign […] Read more »

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“I’d rather keep working in the hope of getting paid than stop working and know I’m not going to get paid.” These words, from a friend of mine who’s not getting paid by the company she’s freelancing for — the only project she has right now — might shock you if you’re on a nice steady cashflow. But if your income isn’t so stable, you might be able to relate to her sense of desperation. Though I know no one’s immune from a recession, this conversation made me think about my own approach to the financial side of what I do. I started to think about what, if anything, I could do to try to cushion myself from the current (and future) economic turmoil… Read more »

Americans tend to glom onto certain Canadian stereotypes (Aboot! Free health care! Geddy Lee!) and beat them into the ground. Well now you can add “global leader in online video viewing” to that list of Canadian quirks. ComScore released new numbers today that showed 21 million […] Read more »

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s jkOnTheRun sponsors. WunderRadio: WunderRadio plays thousands of streaming Internet radio stations and other audio streams Mozy: Backup your photos, music, and files with Mozy for as low as $4.34 per month. Read more »

The very first LaidOffCamp — think BarCamp for those who have lost their jobs due to the recession — kicks off tomorrow, March 3, at 9 a.m. at Temple in San Francisco. It’s billed as “an ad-hoc gathering of unemployed and nontraditionally employed people (including freelancers, […] Read more »

While my new unibody MacBook is pretty state-of-the-art, and indeed the most contemporaneously avant garde computer I’ve ever owned, I’m still a fan of good older hardware and getting a lot of useful work out of my two nine-year-old Pismo PowerBooks. The Pismo, for a variety […] Read more »

Water management company HydroPoint Data Systems is looking to raise between $4 million and $8 million, Chief Strategy Officer (updated: and former CEO) Chris Spain told us recently, and he expects the round to close in the second quarter. HydroPoint is open to adding new investors […] Read more »

Times are tough, we all know that. We also know that there are always opportunities to be had, and that companies that survive this downturn will emerge stronger than ever. But in reading “Business Opportunities Abound, Even in Bad Times” in the NY Times, I was […] Read more »

[qi:115] When the financial crisis reached full bloom last fall, it took many technology companies some time before they were able to appreciate the impact it would have on them. This year, we’re seeing the fallout in the form big losses or shrunken profits, layoffs and […] Read more »

I called one of my friends earlier this week and asked her if we could have lunch on Sunday. I was surprised that she said she couldn’t make it, since she had to work. “What kind of evil forces are making you do this?” I asked […] Read more »

By now, most agree that this recession is likely be longer, deeper and fiercer than those in the past, rendering smaller, newer companies especially vulnerable. Such vulnerability is already playing out in the public markets: Over the past three months, the Russell 2000 has fallen much […] Read more »

Not too long ago, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk called a government guarantee for loans to build its mass-market electric sedan factory a “when, not an if.” Supposedly all the luxury electric car startup needed to begin construction on a plant for its elusive Model S […] Read more »

The world slows down for another couple of days as we hit the weekend and take a few moments to catch our breath. It’s been another hectic week here at TAB, we considered the potential arrival of a Nintendo Wii-style iPhone, rejoiced at the release of […] Read more »

BlogTV is the closest thing to broadcast television on the web. Each day, the site has prime-time viewing hours — evenings, East Coast time — when its traffic balloons from 2,000 concurrent users to tens of thousands. And its live shows are produced by a network […] Read more »

It’s far from certain — it’s even a fairly remote possibility — but the possibility of an economic depression is being discussed more and more these days. As is to be expected, the discussion tends to be centered around how much of what we’re used to […] Read more »

As a web worker who cares about your career, it’s just plain good sense to do what you can to make sure that your income survives increased competition. Fortunately, WWD has offered plenty of advice on that score over the years. Here are an even dozen of our best articles and tips for supercharging your career. Read more »

With the world sliding into a real or imagined recession (sometimes, it’s difficult to tell!) Web Worker Daily has been on the look out for products, services and practices that might help remote workers weather the storm and perhaps feel confident in their own ability to […] Read more »

Coworking is a workplace trend that Web Worker Daily has been following closely of late and one which seems to be experiencing an emerging global acceptance – indeed, myself and Aliza Sherman here at WWD have directly (though separately) been involved in developing coworking spaces and […] Read more »

The economy is changing in dramatic and unexpected ways, and many of us are having a difficult time deciding how to react. Should we adopt a bunker mentality, or keep plugging ahead as if little has changed? The fact is that entrepreneurs are well-suited to respond […] Read more »

Entrepreneurs often focus so much on running their companies that they don’t have time to worry about events in the outside world. Normally, this is how it should be, but the credit crisis slamming Wall Street right now is an exception, and it has deep implications […] Read more »

Despite tentative assurances at last Thursday’s Q&A that the web hosts streaming Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog would be up to the challenge today, drhorrible.com has been crashing all morning, and server traffic has been slow at best. Per the Twitter of star Felicia Day: “Wow, Horrible […] Read more »

Last October, Found|READ lunched with serial entrepreneur and Lookery cofounder Scott Rafer, who gloomily predicted the technology industry was “no more than five months away from the next bust.” Pessimistic, even for the opinionated Rafer, but then he knows a thing or two about successes (MyBlogLog), […] Read more »

Looks like Cisco Systems (CSCO) is dead serious about turning the screws on the competitors of its Linksys line of products. Today, Netgear (NTGR) announced its first-quarter 2008 financial results and they were, to put it mildly, terrible. Sure, revenues were up 14 percent on a […] Read more »

Today we offer the latest edition in Larry Chiang’s long-running series on “Things They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School,” which he is turning into a book. (A list of Larry’s earlier posts is below.) This month’s installment is about how to build good credit […] Read more »

Recessions are good for startups because they foster: Frugality, Fine-tuning, ”Family’ Values, Forerunner-status, & Fire-proofing. We’ve been writing a lot lately about how you can steel your startup for the recession. (See links below.) Now Melissa Chang, writing on the new Industry Standard blog, offers her […] Read more »

The Baltimore Sun is reporting today that Apple sales will stay strong regardless of a declining and troubled economy. I wonder if a bonus check from the government has anything to do with this. Changewave Research conducted a survey of consumers and corporations that plan on […] Read more »

Founders can never get enough advice on how to save money. Last week Weblogs founder Jason Calacanis wrote a handy post about how he’s done this over at Mahalo, where he is currently CEO. Jason took some TechCrunch flak for one tip in particular (“fire non-workaholics!”), […] Read more »

Think you can “market your way through [the] recession”? Harvard‘s Prof. John Quelch thinks you can. We have the economy on our mind at Found|READ. We imagine our readers do, too, so we’re beginning a new series of posts today on how you can best prepare […] Read more »

McKinsey blasted us again yesterday, this time with its foreboding “Special Collection: Coping with a downturn.” Every day the signs of our coming recession grow clearer, so it’s time to start rationing and stockpiling — or diversifying, depending on your business type. Only you can make […] Read more »

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