Every where I turn I hear another news story about big businesses laying off thousands of workers because of “the recession”. My mom works for Sony and she is wondering if she is going to have a job after wave after wave of layoffs. Because, you know, poor Sony must be on the brink of bankruptcy because of this crazy “recession”! There only choice is to fire (or force into retirement) thousands of their loyal employees. Right? Well, according to Sony, profits will now come in at a mere $1.54 billion for the fiscal year ending in March 2009. Yes, Sony profited $1.54 BILLION dollars. As in, after they paid all of their employees and expenses, they walked away with $1.54 billion dollars last year. Good thing they laid all those people off! Otherwise, they would have only made like $1,539,000,000.00.

Now I’m sure you’ve seen Caterpillar splashed across the news because they have been “forced” by “the recession” to lay off tens of thousands of their employees. Caterpillar reported revenue of $2.9 billion for 2008 (after expenses and taxes, they profited $385,000,000). Poor, poor Caterpillar :(!

Now why would businesses like Sony and Caterpillar use a supposed recession as an excuse to lay off employees? Because that way people feel sorry for Caterpillar, rather then become outraged that they would lay off “lifers” (employees that have worked their entire lives there), so that the company can look better on paper. Look shareholders! Profits are up $2million from last year (because we fired a bunch of loyal employees)! Yippy!

I understand that companies (mine included) need to constantly restructure and “cut the fat” so to speak, but I just don’t appreciate them blaming their greed on the recession.