Xerox To Furlough Service Workers

[Anonymous]

Xerox To Furlough Service Workers
By Evan White
Rochester, N.Y. — Xerox Inc. sent a mandatory furlough notice to members of its services division, according to an internal email sent Friday and obtained by 13WHAM News. The brief email states that certain exempt employees will be required to take a furlough week during March 2014. It is unclear how many employees will be impacted in the Rochester area or across the nation.

There are approximately 500 Xerox services employees in the Rochester area, according to the company. “I know that many of you have been working diligently to find ways to reduce expenses so that we can contribute toward meeting our operating profit targets,” wrote Chad Harris, EVP IT Outsourcing with Xerox Business Services, LLC. “Unfortunately, we need to do more.” The furloughs will not have an impact on hourly workers which include the Xerox call center, according to the company.

The majority of Xerox’s Rochester area employees are in the company’s technology division, a spokesman added. “We’re all worried about our jobs,” said an employee who did not wish to be identified. The employee later stated that there was no prior warning that employees would need to take furloughs. The Norwalk, Connecticut based company ended the 4th quarter of 2013 on a down note, its total revenue was $5.6 billion, down 3 percent, according to a January report released by the company. Revenue for business services, which makes up more than half of its total revenue–and employs most of its workers nationwide–,was flat, and its document technology business was down 6 percent for the quarter, according to the report. “The expected impact in the Rochester area should be relatively small,” said a Xerox spokesman. Xerox, once known for its dominant document copying business remains the top employer among publicly traded companies in the Rochester region, with a local workforce of 5,617 as of 2013, according to Greater Rochester Enterprise.

Xerox employs more than 140,000 company-wide. In January, the company stated there would be restructuring in 2014, but “this is not restructuring, a one week furlough is absolutely not the way we would prefer, but this is not a layoff,” said a spokesman.

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February 25, 2014 at 11:27 AM