jetBlue sacks IT team in Forest Hills

**T-Bird76** · 01-22-2009, 10:24 AM

jetBlue hasn't officially put out a press release but my good friend who's a Director in their IT team told me yesterday that the entire Forrest Hills based IT team is being laid off minus 25 key people including himself that they've asked to transfer to MCO. jetBlue offered these 25 people the following options.

1. Move to Orlando, keep current salary.
2. Receive a 3 month sevance package with the last day of work being 7/31/09.
3. Leave before 7/31 and get nothing.

He’s not moving to Orlando so he’ll either stick around until 7/31 or leave before hand if he can find a job.

jetBlue will also be outsourcing their IT functions currently done in house. The move is part of a greater cost savings inititive currently taking place at jetBlue.

**mirrodie** · 01-22-2009, 10:51 AM

There were sacked?!

First Down!

**Matt Molnar** · 01-22-2009, 11:43 AM

That sucks. Not a terrible deal as far as layoff offers go, though.

**ch2tdriver** · 01-22-2009, 12:15 PM

"jetBlue will also be outsourcing their IT functions currently done in house. The move is part of a greater cost savings inititive currently taking place at jetBlue."

Which means that the IT work will be done in India. And they wonder why this country is in such bad shape, when all the (relatively) high paying tech jobs are outsourced overseas. Then the politicians grandstand and say "Look at the jobs we creating by building this here Tanger Outlet Mall in Deer Park!" Yeah......temporary construction jobs and retail service jobs that pay $7/hour....way to go! The land its built on once housed AIL with all its engineering positions, now long gone.

Still, for those folks its not that bad of a deal. If it was me I'd consider MCO, or at least you know you have until July.

**Art at ISP** · 01-22-2009, 03:41 PM

I guess they don't realize that although labor is cheaper, in the long run outsourcing IT costs more....look at all the airlines who have had to take reservations back in house--I see trouble for B6 on the horizon.

Penny wise pound foolish if you ask me.

**Matt Molnar** · 01-22-2009, 03:46 PM

Doesn't jetBlue use a network of housewives in Utah answering phones from home for their reservations? Maybe they'll do something similar with IT.

**Art at ISP** · 01-22-2009, 03:46 PM

I guess they don't realize that although labor is cheaper, in the long run outsourcing IT costs more....look at all the airlines who have had to take reservations back in house--I see trouble for B6 on the horizon.

Penny wise pound foolish if you ask me.

**mmedford** · 01-22-2009, 03:46 PM

damn Barger, messing up more things...

Get rid of this guy, and bring back Neeleman...

**Midnight Mike** · 01-22-2009, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by ch2tdriver

Which means that the IT work will be done in India. And they wonder why this country is in such bad shape, when all the (relatively) high paying tech jobs are outsourced overseas. Then the politicians grandstand and say "Look at the jobs we creating by building this here Tanger Outlet Mall in Deer Park!" Yeah......temporary construction jobs and retail service jobs that pay $7/hour....way to go! The land its built on once housed AIL with all its engineering positions, now long gone.

Still, for those folks its not that bad of a deal. If it was me I'd consider MCO, or at least you know you have until July.

Outsourcing does not always mean India

**Jetinder** · 01-22-2009, 09:00 PM

They have my deepest sympathy as an IT guy my self I know how bad things are out here.

Outsourcing abroad
---------------------
I have friends who also work for a few a merchant banks in the City of London, some of those banks have moved all their IT functions to India and other far off places and this down to cheap labour.

You can get 2-3 people in India for the same wages as 1 person in the UK so there are less IT jobs around and believe me people are suffering.

10 years ago I use to work for a large shipping firm in London they had a brand new Data centre costing millions of $s but 6 months later moved all this to India, so me and others lost our jobs.

Outsourcing locally
--------------------
This can also be done in the same country by "selling" the IT dept to firms like EDS, Cap Gemini, Sungard, CSC, Perot systems and Capita (to name a few).

They buy the whole IT dept, take on the existing staff and integrate them in to their own company.

Some times they move the Computers to their offices, other times the IT staff stay in the same location but just swap contracts and work for the outsourced firm.

Working for an outsourcer is good as you learn a lot of new things, other times its bad as you can get worse pay+conditions or even be made redundant.

It varies with who you work for.

Believe me job wise things in the UK and USA are just as bad and we in the UK are now officially in a recession, i think the only place growing is India.

At least you guys in the USA have a ray of hope (President Obama) for a better future...... us in the UK errrrrrrrr nope guess what we still have "Gordon Brown"............ doh

**Big Tim #70** · 01-25-2009, 06:39 PM

I don't know though, to move to Orlando and keep your same salary as you get in Forest Hills is a pretty nice deal. You're $ will go 30% further in Florida than in NY, especially Queens.