[tommilukkarinen]

"This was an incredibly dumb move, as employees will become “quiet quitters” and lose morale."

Suppose you need to cut employment costs. Is this always better than firing staff?

- For employees: you share the burden instead of some facing hard options (firing) so if you are a team player, this is the choice for you. Those who have options in the market, can still leave for greener pastures; if this was the deciding factor, perhaps they were not too committed on the job anyway? If your unit was on the brink of being profitable (such as being few percent on the negative)), it was just brought to the profitable side, and it might be that now the entire unit can keep their jobs.

- For the company: you still have the option for downsizing, and you just bought time to plan it more thoroughly.

[baq]

MBAs and bean counters ran this company into the ground in the first place. I’m sure the chain of decisions makes perfect sense given circumstances, but there was no vision to actually do anything seriously other than keep printing money. Lo and behold risk happens slowly then all at once.

[jnsaff2]

I’m sure that’s the MBA type rationalizing going on Intel.

Without the second part where the dividends have not been cut and the company would otherwise be making sound business decision it would also be understandable.

As it is tho, it is smelly as hell.