Circuit City's always sucked anyways and these employees were being overpaid for their positions. This is more about cleaning up the mistakes of shitty management than it is corporate getting greedy. They were over-generous with their wages and while it's nice to see managers who take care of their employees, you can't always disregard the best interests of the company. Without the company these people don't have jobs anyways. It's unfortunate for the 8% of the employees affected by this, but there's still 92% of your workforce with futures to think about as well.

Did you know McDonald's has plans (if they haven't done it already) to outsource it's drive-thru windows to India. The person taking your order isn't even going to be in the same country let alone the same building where your food is actually made. If you think outsourced tech support lines are frustrating just wait until you see the rage that comes out of middle class America not being able to order their big mac with extra large fries.

I use to work for Circuit City and made $5.15 an hour for 7 months (less the minimum wage at the time). I couldn't stand it and I so I quite. The funny thing is, their selection sucked, they were over priced, they we're slower then anything getting the items from warehouse, and they taught us employees to push insurance on the most retarded things (who wants to spend 10 bucks to insure a 25 dollar item) and to top it off, sell their crappy, bound to fail Divx DVD player. Anyone remember Divx? Yeah, imagine a guy who sells small electronics (CD players, batteries, alarm clocks) being told that they must offer a proprietary DVD player with insurance to every customer they sell too or they will be fired. Yeah, I hope Circuit City goes out of business.

 

starkers & Nimblin - It's happened in the U.S. as well though mostly only the manufacturing of goods has moved.

I hate to say this but usually the labor costs associated with manufacturing are the killer. Yes the worker needs to earn a wage that allows them to live and to benefit from their hard work.

An example would be buying a car. Growing up you could buy a automobile under $3,000 U.S., a really expenisve one might run up to $5,000 U.S.. Now you're lucky to find something that you consider basic transportation under $15,000 U.S.. Is there that much more material used now in making a car, no. In fact the automobile today because of light weight materials used is less safe and durable then when we grew up. Remember I'm an old fart so this goes back to the late 50's and early 60's.

The increased costs of goods eventually worked it's way into the retail and service sectors. The workers needed higher wages to buy the manufacture goods that had increased in price. Then a new cycle started with every increse in wages the cost of goods and services increased. During the mid to late 70's auto workers in the U.S. couldn't afford to buy the automobile they were helping to build, now that just wasn't right.

Oh crap, I got carried away again sorry folks. I think it's time to step away from the keyboard and watch the sunrise.   

I don't think circuit city pays their workers to have a descent living. That makes me look at myself and stop complaining.

Now I feel bless I have a good job and feel safe.

Thank God

  

Eventually, and maybe not too far away the continued push for a leaner meaner workforce getting paid less than they were has to backfire. The number of people able and willing to buy the goods and services these companies provide has to fall, so while it may have been good for the first company to do it, once all companies have, then whats left? Sure some people will do well, some people always do, but the bulk of people have pretty much just got by (in western countries, I wont mention africa or other third world places)

What happenned to old Henry fords ideal of producing good stuff with a workforce that could afford to buy it?

Labor Unions.

I've read the replies here and they seem to go willy nilly in all direstions. First off, Circus Shitty does not manufacture anything. It's basically a warehouse operation with a retail front end stuck on. Their "stores" are nothing more than showrooms with order takers. Even their web site is a searchable database on line catalog. Best Buy is the same. Adding lots of glitz doesn't change what you are. I appologize if I hurt anyone's feelings, but lets not trump up reality.

Recently (December) I was in the market for a laptop. I searched high and low at all the major players (New Egg, BB, CC etc.) and not a few minor ones. I came away struck by the fact that Cicus Shitty was very obviously having trouble staying competitive. Their selection was poor, on line and in store, and the sheer number of "out of stock" "unavailable" items listed on the web would have sent me into a selling frenzy if I owned their stock. Remember, this was December, a peak selling time for most retailers.

They are not a service industry either. Their computer repair operations are not on site (except for some minor repairs; 20 20 did an expose' on this several years ago showing how inept they were even at that). Why do you think they sell service plans? They get a percentage of that market, and get price reductions on their next vendor order.

The bottom line is they are struggling to remain competitive and need to cut costs to boost available cash for inventory. What's insideous about this, is it's public, and sets a trend for this type of operation. Best Buy does it with a little twist that has them in hot water with a lot of states attorney generals; advertise an item at a sale price, have limited quantities available, post out of stock/back ordered signs and emails for on line orders; wait until the sale expires before restocking or 30 days for on line orders (automatically cancelled after 30 days) and restock at the original price ( I verified this with Western Digital on availability of a hard drive BB carried). That way they can retain their niche facade of being product knowledge experts by retaining a higher paid sales staff.

Remember these guys are not experts in the merchandise they sell. They never were. They are the guys that forced the smaller "expert" shops out of business with the "big box store" concept. They struggle and tank when the real "big box" guys like Wal Mart and Sam's Club start carrying their merchandise lines. Sam's Club had lines of HP laptops for example that CC and BB etc did not. Smart move on HP's part. But when CC and BB couldn't move their flagship lines, ta da, Sam's Club now has access to the "HP Store" (HP web site tailored for indivdual retailers, think web hosting). Sam's Club and Walmart are better at mass merchandising (not advertising) and have a bigger bank roll. And they don't pretend to be product knowledge experts or tech support. They simply sell what you want to buy.

Now, yes I feel bad some good sales people are getting screwed by corporate America once again, but that's the name of the game in sales, buying and selling. What a concept.

In Australia.....government legislation that allows employers to stick it to workers as they see fit/wish.

With the lower end of the socio economic scale constantly on the rise here, with people being forced out of their jobs or to work for much, much less thanks to lil Johnny's warped sense of fair play, more and more people are being priced out of not just luxury items but basic necessities of life.......


Even some of our (former) middle class are barely living above the poverty line thanks to the greed of banks and corporations....the gov't not acting to keep some semblance of balance and stop the bracket creep between the haves and have nots getting out of control.

I shop Newegg (online). Circuit City feels like I'm in the middle of a trading pit.

Newegg rocks, what more can be said! Excellent shipping, wonderful selection, great prices.