downturn

Microsoft is announcing on Sunday a job training effort aimed at giving technical skills to as many as 2 million Americans over the next three years.

The most significant part of the program, in which Microsoft is offering free certification and other technical training, is being done in a phased approach, starting with Washington state. The second component of "Elevate America," available online immediately, is a Web site designed to help people with the basics such as creating a resume and send e-mail.

"Millions of individuals don't have the technology skills needed in today's economy. … Read more

Things are gloomy all around, the global chip industry included. And as much pounding as the semiconductor market has taken, it hasn't hit bottom. The good news? It's "pretty close," Morris Chang, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., told The Wall Street Journal in an interview Friday.

"I think it will be 2012 before the total revenue of the semiconductor industry gets back to the '08 level," said Chang, who has worked in the industry for more than 50 years. He founded TSMC, the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, in 1987.

Last month, … Read more

Updated at 4:55 p.m. PT to correct when employees first received the memo.

Though Hewlett-Packard briefly mentioned during its earnings call Wednesday that it would be reducing compensation across the board, employees got an explanation from management in a detailed memo starting that same afternoon.

Chief executive Mark Hurd sent a long memo to his employees Thursday morning detailing his decision to cut salaries and reduce benefits in order to avoid further layoffs in this recession-battered economy.

Hurd frames his decision as "pretty straightforward." He will take a 20-percent pay cut, executive council members will take … Read more

Troubled Sirius XM Radio announced Tuesday, following reports, that it will accept an investment from cable giant Liberty Media.

The investment, which will save the satellite radio company from bankruptcy or a hostile takeover, will take the form of $530 million in loans in exchange for an equity stake.

The first phase of the investment will consist of a $280 million loan, $250 million of which will be funded immediately on Tuesday, a statement from Sirius XM noted. The second phase, a $150 million loan, will be aimed specifically at the company's XM Satellite Radio subsidiary. Liberty, which owns … Read more

With the economy reeling and layoffs piling up, business-networking site LinkedIn has been not-so-surprisingly hopping.

Market researcher ComScore reported that LinkedIn's unique visitors rose to 7.7 million, a 22 percent increase over December, TechCrunch reported Saturday. And not only are more people visiting LinkedIn, but they're hanging around longer as well. Total minutes spent on the site last month more than doubled from December to 96.8 million, according to TechCrunch.

More people are helping out friends looking for jobs as well. Recommendations were up 65 percent last month over December, TechCrunch said.

Midway Games has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

A recent "change in ownership triggered accelerated repurchase obligations relating to two classes of Midway debt, which Midway anticipated it would be unable to satisfy," the company said Thursday in a statement. In December, Midway announced that investor Sumner Redstone sold an 87 percent stake in the company to Mark Thomas in exchange for $100,000 and the assumption of $70 million in debt.

"This was a difficult but necessary decision," Midway CEO Matt Booty said in a statement of the bankruptcy filing. "We have been focused … Read more

Google's radio advertising business has become the newest project that didn't pass muster in Google's new financially rigorous era, and up to 40 employees will lose jobs as a result, the company said Thursday. However, the company isn't completely withdrawing from the market, saying it's begun exploring ads for streaming audio instead.

"While we've devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven't had the impact we hoped for. So we have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts in online … Read more

Update: This article was corrected to reflect that the information is for the fourth quarter of 2008, not the whole year.

The liquid crystal display TV market is beginning to lose some steam.

The fourth quarter was the first time that the total number of shipments of LCD TVs in North America was lower than the same quarter the previous year. Just 8.7 million units were shipped during the last quarter of 2008, a 2 percent decline from the 8.9 million shipped during the same time in 2007, according to data released Thursday by DisplaySearch, which tracks the … Read more

Research In Motion, maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, warned investors Wednesday that it will likely hit the low end of its earnings forecast for the fourth quarter.

The news comes despite the fact that RIM also predicts strong subscriber growth for the quarter. RIM said Wednesday that it will add about 3.5 million new subscribers by the end of the quarter. This figure is about 20 percent higher than the 2.9 million new subscribers the company said it had expected on December 18.

So what does this mean? Analysts believe the fact that RIM is growing subscribers … Read more