RadioShack Streamlines the Layoff Process, Emails Pinkslips to 400 Workers

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Last week, at its headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, RadioShack laid off 400 employees. Layoffs are hardly news these days, but exactly how they laid off the workers is a bit more noteworthy. Employees received an e-mail that read:

“The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”

“The nation’s most trusted consumer electronics specialty retailer” has taken heat for the move, with its spokesperson defending the decision saying that employees were forewarned of the method of communication and that using email was both “fast” and “private.” True, the company sells phones and could have used those to notify employees, but most of its likely young and expendable workforce is familiar enough with email that the mode of communication may not have fazed them. Instead they had to realize that, as jobless claims are on the decline, they just joined the ranks of the unemployed.

Curiously, the company is currently hiring, using the tagline, R You Ready?, on their career page. They’re already using the lingo, maybe layoffs by text message are next?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate