Schlumberger Layoff: Schlumberger to layoff 5000 jobs after horrible quarterly results

Schlumberger - Oilfield services giant- saw profit fall nearly 17% in latest quarterly results. Bad results together with a bleak outlook has left little choice for schlumberger than to fire full time workers. Schlumberger will make about 5000 job cuts worldwide.

Schlumberger employes about 87,000 employees all over the world. Thus 5000 jobs amounts to about 5.7% of the total employment.

Note the final sentence in this BBC article

Schlumberger did not rule out further redundancies in the first half of 2009, if necessary.

This makes me reiterate a point i had stated earlier: Job cut announcements made by firms are made in the background of bleak yet uncertain year lying ahead. Thus if world economic outlook worsens, we may see more job cuts than previously announced.