economy - Is 100,000 job losses a lot?


An interesting exchange of thoughts with my colleagues on Chinabiz, who today produced an article on the 100,000 jobs the China Construction Bank is going to shed. Is that the most important news of today, the self-set target of Chinabiz? We talk here about a number of people that is similar to a small Chinese village.
The news was already almost a week old, was one of my objections. TBut more important was the question is whether it is really news. Announcing they are going to shed that many people, in preperation of an expected IPO, does not really mean they are going to do it. Are those people really going to be put on the street, or will they remain a burden on the bank's balance sheet. Those are a few details I would like to know, before I'm going to spill too many tears over loss of work, that is anyway a dead-end occupation. And then, is 100,000 really that much, even when it happens?
My first assumption was also that 100,000 is perhaps not that much on the total number of employees, but according to statistics at the end of 2003 the China Construction Bank employs about half a million people. Twenty percent would be in theory a decent number. Anyway: I do think there would be other and bigger news in the banking sector this week.