According to internal sources and affected personnel, AECOM has laid off 1/3 of its corporate staff. The layoffs took place between October 8-12, 2018 under what was described to employees as a cost savings move. Several sources have cited the depressed stock price and the mounting pressure on CEO Mike Burke as one of the primary drivers. Employees that remain at the company have described this move as a band-aid and that the company is slowly “cutting its way to the bottom. It’s a purely reactionary move by a leadership team beset by lawsuits and scandals and it will only serve to further decrease the ability of the company to better serve its customers”
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Wow you all nailed it but Burke is I. It for the short term always was. Fill his pockets quickly bleed the company. These folks don’t care about growing the company it’s all about the shareholders and how they can get tons of money and then jet we’re screwed here. This goose is cooked thanks to all the weasels at the top
Our company was purchased by AECOM before the URS acquisition so I am not a former legacy URS employee. I say this to help provide a relative time frame regarding tenure at AECOM. I am an employee of well over three decades and normally do not feel compelled to comment because it is a choice to work somewhere, not slavery. However, I am breaking silence as I am trying to provide a balanced perspective and commentary regarding the AECOM experience. Just a few points will be presented by me in this reply but I feel that they are important. AECOM has a deep seated problem. In the constant struggle to become more diligent/efficient with making profit it has created possibly the single most inefficient, bifurcated, and beset with constant internal change company on the planet. As a result, AECOM is nothing less than chaotic. A couple of examples; employees have been forced to use a project management software package that has such a poor user interface and critically limited information output that most after a few years still do not have a good working knowledge of the program. I believe that in this information technology age where free apps are better, this is quite unacceptable and horribly unfair to good project managers. Another is the constant reorganization of the company structure and perpetual bad news that there are more layoffs to save money because the real issues that are draining the life out of the bones of the company are ignored. Yes, this is possibly a too generalized comment and possible ill-informed but ignorance of what the corporate strategy is to grow and to flourish is not apparent or conveyed. A last thought that is perhaps is not applicable at all locations or business lines in the company but there are business lines that almost totally rely on the DOER/SELLER to sustain and grow the business. This approach underscores the extreme naivety of management that have decided this is the path. Employees with the skills to get the work, do the work, bill the client and take all of the grief are NOT going to work with AECOM very long as they are able to get better offers or frankly become the next much more cost effective new competitor!!!
Company is a disastrous joke. Treats employees like absolute dirt. Loads of incompetent people at the helm. Stock keeps dropping like a rock. Steer clear of this stock and company. All positive comments were solicited by management, I know because I was asked to contribute to this lie, don’t trust anything they say or do.
Mike Burke was fired from KPMG for some shady business practices. Just type “Mike Burke KPMG” on google and see the results. I’m sure it’s not a surprise to anyone that those business practices are now in place at AECOM. As an investor all I see is a penny wise pound foolish approach to managing the company. It’s not a surprise the stock is not performing while similar companies (Jacobs etc) are booming.
AECOM stock has floundered for years. Shareholders should be calling for the entire management team's heads.The URS acquisition was handled poorly. URS had a large bureaucracy; but AECOM is even worse. Mike Burke has done a horrible job - he has and continues to cut staff (in many cases the wrong staff) in and effort to increase shareholder value and share price is lower than it was 5 years ago. I don't know how he keeps his job. I suspect because all his cronies are some of the largest shareholders.