More AOL Layoffs in Dulles

Supreme Kudos to Tammi Marcoullier of Living in LoCo for the tale.

Over the next couple of months, AOL will lay off 2,000 people out of a worldwide workforce of 10,000, according to a letter to company employees sent by CEO Randy Falco today. These staff reductions begin tomorrow, as have long been rumored throughout the company and in the blogsphere. The Associated Press is reporting that about 750 staff will be cut from Northern Virginia offices, including former headquarters in Dulles; 1,200 total in the U.S. - "AOL's Falco Says 2,000 Layoffs" Living in LoCo

So much for AOL's "strong presence in the county" and assertions that moving the headquarters to New York would "affect fewer than 100 people." The County officials got this one wrong. The reality-based community got this one right.

AOL's senior decision makers are leaving town, which makes them much less likely to take the concerns and interests of Loudoun into effect when making decisions about the future of AOL. To put it more simply, it is a lot easier to fire a block of employees if you don't have to run into them in Wegmans. - Leesburg Tomorrow, September 17, 2007

In one action, Loudoun just lost all the jobs gained in the Orbital Sciences announcement. Orbital Sciences is only adding about 600 jobs, so there is a net loss of 150 jobs in the announcements in the past two months. And those are relatively well-paying jobs, representing anywhere from 75-150 households and their taxes and local purchases. Those are 75-150 families who will have to worry about foreclosure, who will consider selling their houses, and who will spend less money. This is not welcome news in the face of a $100 million budget deficit in Loudoun.

It is not coincidence that AOL announced their headquarters move before these layoffs. It was their strategy from the start. And through it all the silence from Stephen Snow and Frank Wolf has been deafening. If Frank Wolf could sponsor a legislative earmark dealing with Internet porn, you might think he would be able to pay attention to local Internet jobs.

It is time for a complete change in leadership. This year, we must elect a new Board of Supervisors, and better representatives to Richmond. Next year we must change the direction of the nation by changing our Congressional representation.

Please support your Democratic candidates for Supervisor, and stop the Board majority from doing any more damage:

Kelly Burk for Leesburg, she's running against Jim Clem.

Sally Kurtz for Catoctin, she's the voice of reason and responsible government on the current Board.

Stevens Miller for Dulles, he's running against Stephen Snow.

Jeanne West for Sterling, she's running against Eugene Delgaudio.

Susan Buckley for Sugarland Run, she's running against Mick Staton.

Andrea McGimsey for Potomac, she's running against Bruce Tulloch.

Phyllis Randall for Broad Run, she's running against Republican Lori Waters.

Mike George for Sheriff, because our problems today were Fairfax's problems yesterday.

[update] From the comments at the LoudounExtra story: "750 workers is a whopping 19% of the personnel at the Dulles location." Think about that, one in five AOL employees in Dulles are going to lose their jobs.