Ex-Ingram staff go job hunting on Web

Former employees of Ingram Micro have set up a Website to offer each other moral support as well as a forum for advertising themselves for alternative employment, after they were made redundant last month.

About 65 former staff members, out of 1,400 who lost their jobs at the distributor, banded together after they were laid off on 15 March, hoping the Website will reap fresh employment opportunities.

The group has called itself Career Partners Unlimited. On the site, members have posted CVs and photos for prospective employers to appraise. It has also set up links to online recruitment agencies.

Jerre Stead, chief executive of Ingram, cited 'intense margin pressure, primarily in the US, related directly to increased price competition and softness in sales during the first quarter of 1999', as the main reasons for the redundancies. He added that initiatives to maximise cost savings and efficiencies were being intensified.

In the US, IBM closed its Californian consolidation centre and set up a merchandising unit that integrated purchasing, vendor sales and product marketing functions.

The Website follows in the footsteps of a UK initiative by Info'Products staff who were made redundant after its acquisition. Ex-employees of the reseller set up The Unofficial Ex-Info'Products Staff Resources Site in January as a means of communicating with each other (PC Dealer, 20 January).

Of the 150 or so made redundant, 88 people registered their details on the site when it launched.