
General Electric to cut 12,000 jobs in power business revamp - fmihaila
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ge-jobs/general-electric-to-cut-12000-jobs-in-power-business-revamp-idUSKBN1E11GU
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bluedino
Wasn't GE running all kinds of commercials about jobs at the "new" GE, trying
to hire millenials?

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nkozyra
Well it's a huge, diverse company. That they're trying to recruit and promote
areas appealing to young people while they still maintain (and pursue)
stalwarts of industry is not in conflict. If anything, moves like that
reinforce that notion, shifting business priorities

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sharpercoder
Something has gone very wrong at the GE board. They invested $10B+ in 2015 in
the power business, which they now axe. They just took over Baker Hughes (last
June), which they now want to get rid of.

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revelation
It's the power business, where every purchase is planned 30 years in advance.
To cut 12000 jobs there is just gross mismanagement.

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MaysonL
Was any of the solar and wind power currently being installed planned even 10
years ago? I doubt it: fossil and nuclear installations planned have been
going down for quite a while.

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PoachedSausage
One of the UK sites that may shut in Stafford makes giant power grid
transformers, you order those well in advance. I don't see how renewables are
to blame, offshore wind still needs a grid connection and large substation
transformers.

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ggm
The last sentence says it all. Its not that there is no market for GE's _type_
of skills, its that there are competitors from other places. That includes
people located in the primary growth market footprint, of Asia. So GE would be
competing with European and North american salary and cost models, against
people every bit as good (and they are) but from a different cost model, and
even if you equalize for _that_ the asian suppliers can deliver onsite for
less, because they are constructing locally.

Look outside Asia. Who is investing in Africa? yep. China. They build roads,
rail lines, power networks, in return for the coltan.

GE as an IPR company doesn't need the same number of people as GE as a build-
and-ship company. GE will continue to exist as a bespoke engineering design
entity. Maybe GE is becoming ARUP?

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idoh
What does IPR, ARUP, and coltan mean?

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AnimalMuppet
Coltan: Columbite-tantalite, an ore that contains niobium and tantalum.

IPR: Intellectual property rights.

ARUP: I presume the Arup Group, as Wikipedia says: "a multinational
professional services firm headquartered in London which provides engineering,
design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects
of the built environment."

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munk-a
This coming within a week of them being handed a giant tax cut...

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maxxxxx
I don't understand how anyone thinks the tax cuts will have an impact on
hiring or wages. Companies are already making record profits so if they had a
need for hiring people they could afford it already. They also could afford to
increase wages now if they saw a need. The tax cut money will probably go into
stock buybacks or dividends.

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stephen_g
Yes, to think that tax cuts would increase employment, you would need to first
believe that companies hire people they don’t need for fun.

In reality, they will hire if increased demand for their goods or services
requires more people to produce them.

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TheAdamAndChe
The idea is that greater money saved would lead to more money being invested,
allowing for continual exponential growth of the company and thus increased
employment.

Obviously it hasn't worked out well. Most large-cap corps have more cash than
they need for investment, they just are holding onto it.

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digitalmaster
“Our problem isn’t that we don’t have enough stuff, it’s that we don’t have
enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserves the stuff “
Douglas Rushkoff

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andrewjl
Why can't GM re-tool and redeploy those in steam and nuclear generation
sectors to work on renewables? The coming wave of solar / wind deployments
will be the largest power-related chunk of capex in a generation.

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chroem-
Because renewables, like wind and solar, and thermal power generation are
completely different technologies. There is very little in the way of
transferrable knowledge and manufacturing tooling between the two.

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beckler
Also the margins on renewables are quite thin due to competition and recent
innovation in that space.

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nielsbot
...Leading to thin margins on non-renewables (hence the layoffs?)

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beckler
GE Power's bread and butter is gas turbines, and the margins there are strong.
As long as natural gas stays cheap, there is usually demand for turbines.
Renewables have obvious issues, which is mostly around demand and load. Like
solar can't supply power in the evening. GE's problem stems from foreign
competition where growth is. I'm oversimplifying here, but an example would be
China pumping infrastructure into Africa. GE can't win in those markets
because China can undercut and they don't have the same regulations that the
US has.

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sidbdjdhs
I can’t think of a single big descision GE management has made that hasn’t
been terrible in the long term. And they were the poster company to justify
big CEO compensation

