Against the backdrop of an uneven economic recovery, these restructuring initiatives are designed to make American Express more nimble, more efficient and more effective in using our resources to drive growth, Chenault said in the statement.
greedy fucks, why not keep them employed, just a drop in the bucket to keep them employed with the profits they make.
Is that some kind of troll? This is an economically destructive attitude. Why pay people to do redundant work when those resources could be spent better elsewhere?
It might be good for the company, and in principal, it seems sound, but finding new work is generally a resource-consuming process itself (not just for the worker himself, but the economy as a whole as consumption possibly drops). Overall, it may be an economically destructive action to "give up" on employees rather than trying to "salvage" them (whether that means keeping them on-board assuming they'll be profit-makers later, or repurposing them to work in a similar role). Not taking a side either way, but it'd be interesting to read studies on the true impact of letting employees go.