Thread regarding General Electric Co. layoffs

I was a 25 plus year GE power gen manager that (thankfully!) left on my own terms 2 years ago prior to the current incredible and terrible sh!tstorm. We always had succession planning for all managers and in my exit interviews I had long discussions and recommendations about the leader on my team that was ready to step into the bigger role. Two weeks after I left for a competitor I heard that my recommendation and all of the prior years' succession planning was tossed and instead a lifetime Alstom guy backfilled me. Nothing personal and I never knew or met the guy but what kind of twisted logic leads to brining in management talent from a company with virtually no service presence in the US that literally ran itself into the ground and had to be bailed out by the French government more than once? I was a life GE engineer right out of college and my wife for years joked that I had a meatball tattooed on my backside because of my dedication to my customers and my company. Sad for my team that I left but I couldn't do anything more to help them. So happy I landed in a company that treats its customers like GE did when I signed on in the early 90s.

I was one of the affected employees in March lay-off and I can say without a doubt that they went after older higher paid employees with many years of service. They threw in some younger employees just to keep it from looking like total age discrimination but don't fool yourself. There was a reason why your immediate manager was not involved in the decision of who was let go. The HR and Executives made all the decisions based on cost savings including getting rid of older workers who cost more in benefits such as healthcare and pension. GE Power was given reduction goals of 20% this year. Not sure if they have met those goals yet but I would not be surprised to see another round this year. I would expect to see early retirement notices in August/September followed by lay-offs once they find out how many take the early retirement packages. This is how it was done in March. There goal will to get everyone off the books by end of year. Remember that severance and retirement packages are charged to corporate and not to the P&Ls, so once you stop getting a paycheck your off the P&Ls books.

The GE we all knew and respected is gone for good. The company left is no different than any other big slow poorly run American company. The days of keeping their best people and retraining them when required are over. It will be a hire and fire company from now on. Keep your resume updated and build your network so you have options!

Sickening that GE continues to hire OMLP, DTLP program candidates and interns while they can't get rid of senior employees fast enough. The comment earlier about youth over experience is dead-on except they should have said GE values "cheap" over "right"

20% more headcount reduction of long Service GE employees? Any additional details about this? Does this impact GE Power employees in Greenville, South Carolina?

I have to agree with @047wz40-bub and have something to add. My group in Alstom hoped beyond hope that the acquisition by GE would cause some positive changes in the way projects in our area of expertise were executed but man were we wrong. I wish the acquisition never happened as we lost an excellent engineering manager due to GE management's ineptitude and our unit's market visibility has gone from good to almost nil. To add insult to injury the GE benefit package is poor compared to Alstom's but I understand that's the way things have to be. I have also told my "boss" to volunteer me for any upcoming layoffs in our group as the younger engineers need the work more than I do.

An investment blog has been talking about GE Powers gas turbine fleet failures. An interesting part of the discussion is that GE only makes money on repairing the gas turbines as the gas turbine service market is very lucrative. The investors are talking about how GE makes money by FORCING customers to use GE for repairs. The problem they are predicting is the aftermarket is becoming more attractive than the GE OEM repair work. Yes, warranty impacts were discussed but the bottom line is that GE can only make money when they FORCE people to buy their product. That's a very dangerous position to be in and the investors are aware.

GE leadership doesn't understand the importance of experience, dedication, and loyalty. The faster they can get rid of expensive GE employees the faster their bonus will add up. The impact doesn't matter because their current leadership role is always scheduled to change soon and they will not be around to experience the impact. Do these actions by GE's so-called leaders really surprise anyone?

As a legacy Alstom employee with close to 30 yrs, it hasn't taken long to figure out that GE embraces youth over experience. We've seen our fair share of loss as well. At some point, the younger ones will leave when there isn't enough experienced people to learn from.