BlackBerry Is Downsizing MoraleChelsea Scherer

BlackBerry’s downsizing is forcing current employees to make lifestyle changes in fear that they will be ‘tapped on the shoulder’.

On March 19th, it was reported that BlackBerry had laid-off another 120 employees. The company said these layoffs were part of their 40 per cent workforce reduction announced last September.

Aside from those who lost their jobs, this issue also impacts the current employees.

Will Russell, a portfolio analyst, who has been working at BlackBerry for six and a half years can attest to this.

He said that when BlackBerry first started making large layoffs he did not feel emotionally impacted because he did not see anyone around him being let go.

After a few months of hearing about it happening in other departments, he saw the first person get ‘tapped on the shoulder’ and escorted out of the building.

“It was like having your family and friends ripped away from you,” he said.

Following the first glimpse, at what would turn into thousands losing their jobs, he noticed the workplace becoming incomplete.

“There were daily reminders making it harder to remember how fun it had been to work here,” Russell said. “As an employee, it is difficult to remain motivated at the same level when you know that any day you may be let go.”

He also mentioned that his individual contributions felt valueless because he knew it meant little to the people who decided who would be let go.

Despite all of this, Russell admitted that he wants to see the company succeed in this time of BlackBerry’s fight for survival.

BlackBerry announced, last summer, their intent to sell the company due to their increasingly unfavorable financial position and competition in the mobile industry. This was largely due to the lower than expected sales when they released the Z10 smartphone. It was then estimated that they would have to downsize 40 per cent in order to cut costs.

At its prime, the company had close to 20,000 employees. After the most recent cut in March, that leaves the company with less than 7,000 employees.

This is evidently more than 40 per cent.

BlackBerry had gone from a once-prominent position in the smartphone industry to posting an almost billion-dollar loss in the last quarter – which was March of this year.

“You need to distance yourself from the company, otherwise you will find yourself in a perpetual state of depression; as I have felt quite strongly for the past five months,” Russell said.

Russell and his wife made lifestyle changes in order to prepare for an unexpected letting-go.

Over the past few years, they have chosen to take cheaper options in their purchases, such as, avoiding buying a brand new car and taking a used one when their car died. Along with putting-off moving into a nicer home.

These were all decisions made because Russell did not feel confident in terms of a steady paycheque.

The anxiety not only made him more frugal but also emotionally unhappy. His friendships and relationships have had to take a back seat in times of work-related stress.

“I do not feel happy in anything that I do because I am not as happy emotionally,” he said. “I do not get the same level of pleasure out of life, and am reaching the point where I need to find a job in another company for my own emotional well-being.”

Russell said despite seeing coworkers sell their cars and houses in order to make ends meet, he has not seen it be a huge financial impact for the community as a whole – and he is absolutely correct according to local bankruptcy advisors.

In fact, the bankruptcy rates in Kitchener-Waterloo have fallen in recent years. In 2011, the count was at 1,182 and in 2013 it fell to 993 people filling for bankruptcy.

“With the current unemployment rate at 6.9 per cent in Kitchener-Waterloo, the loss of BlackBerry jobs has had little harm on the local economy,” said Doug Hoyes, bankruptcy trustee at Hoyes, Michalos & Associates Inc.

Hoyes said that it is possible that many former BlackBerry employees made a substantial amount of money while they worked there and would have sufficient savings to see them through until the next job.CBC recently reported the median annual salary for software developers in Waterloo was at approximately $69,000, whereas the average annual salary for a BlackBerry software developer is approximately $77,809.

“My theory on this is that BlackBerry employees, in general, are often better educated and command higher salaries than average. If BlackBerry does not have a position for them, it is likely someone else will,” said Wesley Cowan, bankruptcy trustee at Member of Praxity Limited.

Regarding this situation, one might wonder why BlackBerry still has an over-flowing amount of co-op applications every year from students.

“There is actually a very high demand for engineering and computer science co-ops. I would not say the restructuring at BlackBerry has a direct impact on our co-op program,” said Yvonne Hunter, the associate director of marketing & communications for the faculty of engineering at the University of Waterloo.

This goes to show that in most circumstances the downsizing has little cost to BlackBerry executives, co-op students, and former employees who were laid-off.

The impact mostly weighs on current full-time employees who fear the ‘tapping on their shoulder’ is just around the corner.