While Razorfish buys agencies in Spain, it’s laying off staffers in New York…
“Many companies, especially those in the financial services sector, have been hit hard by the economic crisis. This has had a direct impact on our business, particularly in New York. As a result, Razorfish needed to lay-off about 40 people today, about 2 percent of our national workforce.”
Okay look. It sucks that people are getting laid off in New York while agencies are being bought in foreign countries. It totally sucks and looks terrible on paper.
Here’s the thing – lets try and be nuanced about this… The US market is in the crapper. Salaries cost cash and that’s the bottom line. The agency, to survive in good standing, has made the belated, but smart move of looking overseas while the looking is still good. Meanwhile, the other hand is cutting staff Stateside. While some may want to cry bollocks, this is the nature of business in general. Some agencies are trying to stay afloat to keep the other employees receiving pay checks.
I will say that I wish they could have done a “everyone works 4 days rather than 5” type of thing, but hell, maybe it wasn’t possible. For those laid off – I’ll see you at the headhunter’s office? Maybe we can get some coffee and commiserate.