Dell to shut U.S. plant, lay off 905

Texas: Dell has announced that it will close desktop manufacturing plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina by the end of January 2010, which will lay off 905 employees. The company said that 600 will be laid off by next month.

Dell was promised more than $300 million in state and local incentives to open the plant. But in order to get these incentives it required to invest $100 million, create 1,700 jobs by September 2010 and maintain those jobs for 10 more years or forfeit the package.

Dell said it would comply with the terms of the incentive agreement.

The closure of this plant is part of a plan to save $4 billion a year by 2011. In January this year, Dell had said that the company would move its Ireland manufacturing operations to Poland, a process that is still ongoing. Dell also sold its Lebanon, Tennessee, remanufacturing plant to Genco in June this year.

Dell has plants in the Miami, Nashville, Austin and Texas in the U.S. Outside America its has plants in Brazil, Ireland, Poland, China, Malaysia and India. It also partners with other manufacturers to make certain products.

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No more philanthropism for techies

Bangalore: Disasters have always revealed the generous side of thousands of techies, however, post recession they have turned more cautious on any such philanthropy. Is it that a year of economic uncertainty has made them think twice? Their resounding silence on flood relief in North Karnataka, may indicate the same.

Most companies contacted had no firm plans on what they would contribute. Neither have there been statements from the usually active Corporate Social Responsibility divisions. Earlier thousands of techies chipped in with a day’s salary or more , as their managements tried to match their employees’ contributions, reports the Deccan Chronicle.

A day ahead of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s planned meeting with IT honchos on the issue, Infosys’ HR director Mohandas Pai said, “We will contribute to rehabilitation work later on. “Also, a Wipro Spokesperson said that the company had not yet decided; Cisco said it had not formalised plans yet but was in talks with NGOs and a MindTree Spokesperson said the company and its employees will contribute, but they had not worked out the details yet.

Nasscom President Som Mittal refrained from commenting on what’s being seen as tardy response from a famously-rich sector, “I have been out of the country for the last eight days. I cannot comment,” he said.

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Pre placement offers come raining down on IITs

Bangalore: Even before the placement season starts in December, India’s premier engineering colleges- IITs are already receiving good pre-placement offers (PPOs). All the seven IITs have seen a jump in PPOs, the job offers made to students after summer internships and before campus placements.

the current year, all IITs have witnessed a jump in pre-placement offers (PPOs), or job offers made to students after summer internships and before campus placements, as Indian corporates have started hiring in big numbers buoyed by a revival in the economy, reports Economic Times.

“Things are better this year and we even see a 10-20 percent increase in average salaries,” says Prof PK Jain who is takes care of campus placements at IIT-Roorkee.

The graduates can expect a 10-20 percent salary hike from last year when the average offers saw a 30 percent drop to around Rs. 6 lakh as the global recession and a slowing economy forced many recruiters to shelve expansion plans and cut expenses. This year, a number of companies have already drawn up plans to recruit from the top tech schools.

The state owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is planning to hire 300 students from IITs and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), according to R C Srivastava, Director, Human Resources. The salary on offer will increase around 70 percent to Rs. 10 lakh on the basis of revised pay scales on Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

As many state owned companies have shown interest, IITs also expects big recruiters such as Larsen & Toubro, Gas Authority of India, Tata Motors, Oracle, JP Morgan and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), who on an average pick 10-15 students to return this placement season.

The hiring in MNCs in the last placement season from IITs went down to 1,606 from 3,031, according to the Ministry of Human Resource and Development. The technology companies like IBM, consultants KPMG, McKinsey, BCG and Ersnt &Young are expected back on hiring this year.

The world’s largest oilfield services provider Schlumberger, which gave the highest package of $100,000 last year is also expected.

Adobe Systems will hire 4-5 graduates from each of the seven IITs, while finance companies Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank have already made some offered.

IIT-Kharagpur has received around 15-20 PPOs and expects the number to touch 40. IIT-Madras has cornered around 25 PPOs. IIT-Guwahati has 20 has seven more expected, while IIT-Roorkee expects its PPOs to touch last year’s mark of 35. IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur have less than 10 and five PPOs respectively.

The schools are ensuring high participation in the placement season by inviting more companies and improving facilities. “We are trying every bit not to let go of the opportunity this time,” said Prof Jain, IIT-Roorkee.

IIT-Kharagpur is adding 10 new interview chambers to the figure of existing 40 and a similar figure of guest houses. The students’ call centre team has called 1,000 companies as compared to 500 last year. IIT-Madras has added 300 more to last year’s list of 500, IIT-Roorkee will call on 1,500 recruiters, up from 1,000 last year.

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