Things aren’t getting any prettier in the job market.
Reports are coming in that ChaCha may be near death. The company cut 25 employees today, leaving just 56 staff members on board.
Here is an update from one employee who was let go:
Wanted to drop you a quick line informing you of layoffs at ChaCha today. There were 25 people layed off, leaving the company with 56 employees. Some very high ranking people were let go today, including 2 Directors of Development, the Vice President of Engineering, 2 Product Managers, a Sr. Director of Product Management, Director of Marketing Communications, 2 Linux System admins, and a Senior Program Manager. These were some of the larger layoffs. The rest of the company will also be taking a 10% decrease in pay, along with Upper MGMT taking larger cuts.
These cuts come in the face of a drowning company. The ex VP of Mobile Ad Sales at Yahoo, Rob Wilk, has been in the NYC offices for 8 weeks now, and has not closed one single deal for any advertising on ChaCha’s platform. After I was let go, there was a company meeting in which Scott Jones layed out a pretty bleak estimate for the coming times. If the company can’t get to a crossover point and make money in 2 months, the whole thing is over.
Adding to today’s carnage, Nokia is laying off 1,700 workers around the globe, the latest in a string of cutbacks by the cell phone company.
The latest round of layoffs affects staff members within Nokia’s devices and markets units, corporate development office, and global support functions department. Nokia, of course, blames the current economic climate for the change.
Get Blippitt via RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and be sure to get our Daily Email Broadcast.
