Sharp Overwhelmed By Volunteers For Early Retirement 103
jfruh writes "Sharp, the Japanese LCD supplier in dire financial straits, is trying to cut staffing by offering an early retirement package. Unfortunately, it seems Sharp employees are eager to abandon a sinking ship. The company was planning on cutting its headcount by about 2,000 employees with the move; instead, it had to cut short the program after getting nearly 3,000 applicants."
Re:this is a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this a bad sign?
Why should people in their mid 50's or older not be perfectly happy to stop working while still being paid? The company I work with is closing down the IBM mainframes and a lot of people are leaving rather than re-training. That comment about a "sinking ship" is totally missing the point, the ship may or may not be sinking but people who have 30 years of working no longer feel they have something to prove. Of course the retirement package on offer has to be adequate but this one certainly seems to be that!
Re:this is a bad sign (Score:5, Insightful)
Early retirement is one way to cut the work force – however, if done poorly it can lead to a brain drain. The more oversubscribed it is the more likely this will happen.
Also, you want to downsize as efficiently / cheaply as possible. The oversubscription suggests that the HR people could have gotten the size reduction they needed with less generous terms.
Re:Not sure I understand (Score:5, Insightful)
When you offer an early retirement package and there's a mad scramble of people trying to take you up on it, the real danger is that you lose your best and brighttest. While it does get rid of headcount, it runs a real risk of losing people that you can't actually afford to lose.
Plus if the employees all want out, it doesn't say good things about their faith in the future of the company.