With so much in the news about job cuts and closures of well-known dot com companies, we at SearchtheWeb.com thought we would track these companies and Internet related sites and provide you with updated short news announcements on their status.
3/29/02
PentaStar Communications, Inc., Denver, slapped with a temporary restraining order barring use of any assets, fired or furloughed all employees except its officers. The provider of communications services also said it would cease making all regulatory filings, including its annual report that was due Sunday. PentaStar said it was unable to collect more than $3 million in past-due receivables from various communications-service providers and was unable to meet cash obligations.
3/27/02
BT Group PLC said Wednesday it is cutting 2,200 jobs under a major reorganization of its call centers in the United Kingdom. The company said it would close 53 of its 150 call centers over the next two years and phase out others later. The cuts, starting in October, will take the number of full-time posts in the call center operation to around 13,600 by the end of March 2004. Current employment at the call-centers unit is equivalent to 15,800 full-time jobs.
3/27/02
Snowball.com Inc. shut down ChickClick.com, its Web site devoted to teenage girls and their interests. Snowball, based in San Francisco, runs a network of affiliated sites targeted at teenagers and young adults. ChickClick posted a message to its readers alerting them to the decision to close the site. "Unfortunately, because of the changes in the economy, we can no longer keep ChickClick up and running," according to the message.
3/27/02
Adelphia spinoff Adelphia Business Solutions filed for Chapter 11 after months of struggling to meet debt obligations, and cited the near shutdown of the telecom capital markets and the overall decline in the industry. Adelphia, which filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, becomes the latest telecom operator to buckle under stiff competition.
3/26/02
Ciena Corp. announced its largest layoff ever, culling 650 jobs, or 22% of its work force, furthering efforts begun in November to realign the company in the face of the woeful telecommunications-equipment market.
3/26/02
Contract manufacturer Sanmina warned all 620 staff at its plant in Motala, central Sweden, that they could be laid off, citing a weak outlook in the telecommunications industry. Sanmina also notified 110 of 150 employees at another facility in the Swedish town of Bengtsfors of possible dismissal because of a weak market for automotive vehicles.
3/25/02
A second major U.S. airline, U.S. Airways, signaled it may seek pay cuts from its employees to help restore financial health.3/25/02
ABN Amro Holding NV said it will close its loss-making U.S. equities and mergers and acquisitions operations, which will result in 550 job losses and $179 million after-tax restructuring charge. The Dutch bank, which failed to amass strength in the face of stiff competition from larger players, said the move will allow it to focus its efforts on strengthening its European and Asian equities and corporate finance activities.
3/25/02
A federal appeals court upheld a federal judge's July ruling keeping song-swapping service Napster shut down until it can fully comply with an injunction to remove all copyrighted music.
3/25/02
Less than a week after announcing it had swung to profitability last year, Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd. - Hong Kong's leading telephone company and one of the city's largest private-sector employers -- hacked into its cost structure, cutting 858 jobs , or 6% of its work force.
3/25/02
Altra Energy Technologies has sold one of its last remaining business units to ChemConnect and plans to shut down its operations completely by the end of the week.