Timesizing® Associates

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Downsizings in May/2000
[Commentary] ©2000 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

5/31/2000  3 downsizings reported, totalling 1,220 lost jobs + unspecified -

1. IBM will dismiss 1,000 employees in services division, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The No. 1 computer services company..\..is cutting about 1,000 U.S. services employees, or less than 1% of the division's workers, as contracts to manage other companies' computer networks end. IBM...is dismissing some technicians who [worked on the Y2K bug]. IBM expects more than half of the dismissed workers to find other jobs in the company, which is based in Armonk, NY. IBM employs 138,000 workers worldwide in services and 307,000 people overall.
   [What a disgrace that the leading company in the most futuristic technology still practices the most backward and unsustainable strategy of downsizing instead of moving on to timesizing.]

2. Union seeks to keep dairy operation open - Stop & Shop plans to shut facility, by Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, D3.
   ...Earlier this year [but not counted by us yet - ed.], as part of a strategy to focus on its core business of food retailing, Stop & Shop announced plans to discontinue its dairy operations..\..at a company facility in Hyde Park's Readville section...and have its store-brand dairy products made by an independent supplier...Suiza Foods Corp., the Dallas company that owns many dairy operations in the Northeast, including Garelick Farms of Franklin..\.. As for the workers in the dairy operation, Stop & Shop said it would attempt to reassign many of them to other jobs within the company. By the union's count, about 120 workers are employed making Stop & Shop dairy products.
   According to Teamsters business agent Ritchie Reardon, shutting the dairy facility would violate a contract between Stop & Shop and the union that doesn't expire until 2003.... The union said it feared Stop & Shop would close the dairy operation before the arbitration association had time to review the case, so the Teamsters asked the court to enjoin Stop & Shop from shutting the dairy operation until the arbitration hearing is completed, Reardon said. Reardon said he hopes the judge will grant the injunction later this week....

3. Union seeks to keep dairy operation open - Stop & Shop [has already closed a food processing unit], by Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, D3.
   ...Earlier this year [but not counted by us yet either - ed.], Stop & Shop closed a small food processing unit at its Readville facility; most of the 100 workers affected by the decision were assigned to other jobs within the chain, Stop & Shop said. There was no lawsuit [by the union] in that case because the union contract covering the food processing workers had expired..\..according to the Teamsters business agent, Ritchie Reardon.... Operating 204 stores, Stop & Shop...is owned by Royal Ahold NV, a Dutch food giant.

1. General Motors Corp., NYT, B3.
   ...said its Saturn division would lay off 490 workers - about 20% of the unionized work force - from its assembly plant in Wilmington, Del., because of poor sales of its new L Series midsize sedan and wagon.
   [And continuing from the 5/26 09:53 EDT wirestory, "GM lays off 490 workers from Saturn Delaware," Reuters via AOLNews via RadioTony -]
   ...Effective June 12, the Saturn plant will permanently switch to a single shift, cutting annual capacity to 80,000-10,000 units with upside potential with overtime, from about 200,000 units with 2 shifts working full-time, said Saturn spokeswoman Sue Mallino....
   [If any company should be timesizing instead of downsizing, it's the Saturn division with its supposedly elite workforce! What are they going to do for skilled people if there's an upturn in their sales? And how are they going to maintain Saturn morale and quality if they subject their "elite" workforce to this kind of crappy treatment? And dropping nearly 500 of their own best boosters and customers?! Recall the Ford-Reuther paradox - Ford: "Let's see you unionize these robots!" and Reuther: "Let's see you sell them cars."  GM has always been kind of confused about the value of its employees, as Michael Moore's film "Roger and Me" documents. VW has a better record, and recently also DaimlerChrysler's Jeep Cherokee division has trimmed from 7½- to 7-hour shifts to avoid layoffs - see 4/29/00 story.]

2. Maytag to lay off 120, Bridge News via NYT, B2.
   NEWTON, Iowa...- The Maytag Corp., the No. 3 maker of large appliances in the U.S., said this week that it would lay off 120 workers in its laundry appliances division. The layoffs, which represent 4.8% of the 2,500 workers at the company's plant in Newton, Iowa, were attributed to slower sales of Maytag's Dependable Care washers. The last layoff at the Newton laundry products operation was in December 1997.

3. 60% of Air India to be sold, by P. J. Anthony, NYT, B2.
   India's cabinet committee on disinvestment decided to privatize India's money-losing international...carrier Air India by selling a 60% stake...to strategic partners, private invesetors and employees..\.. The government will retain a 40% stake.... To reduce its losses, Air India has drawn up early-retirement plans for 60% of its employees.... Air India currently has 26 airplanes in its fleet [and] flies to 11 cities within India and 23 cities abroad.

4. Careers teeter in the [Martha] Graham group, by Jennifer Dunning, NYT, A24.
   ...The Martha Graham Dance Co. [is] suspending activity indefinitely because of financial problems.... The company, which was founded in 1929 by Graham, has an accumulated deficit of $500,000..\.. The decision...which also affects the school and the company's junior troupe, was made at a board meeting on Thursday afternoon.... Several teachers have volunteered to teach without pay next week..\..
   Ken Topping, the director of the Martha Graham Ensemble, broke the news to his dancers on Thursday. The group, which is made up of advanced students at the Graham school, was to have performed at Marymount Manhattan Theater on the Upper East Side in mid-June.... "I didn't want to stop them," he said. "We waited a few minutes. It was so painful to watch them dance so beautifully. They were just bewildered." The school, which had been operating in rented space at 440 Lafayette St, draws students from around the world.
   Ron Protas, whom Graham had chosen to direct the company after her death 1991, abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote. In reaction to the board's decision, Mr. Protas, who licenses Graham's dances as the director of the Martha Graham Trust and who has been feuding with the board over the company's direction, withdrew permission for the works to be performed by the troupe....
   [Evidently this whole management level is not "cut from the same cloth" as Martha Graham herself, and has disgracefully betrayed her legacy, and her dancers. Seems like in one of these pre-depression eras, the whole level of American management deteriorates. The long-term view vanishes, and fast returns for little or no work is the only goal.]

1. SeagateTechnology plans to close 2 disk drive plants, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The No. 1 maker of disk drives said yesterday that it planned to close 2 plants...and lay off about 1,200 workers [1212 to be exact] because of falling demand and prices. The company, which plans to go private, said about 621 workers at its plant in Anaheim, Calif. and about 591 workers in Mexicali, Mexico, would be laid off. Seagate will consolidate disk production at its plant in Limavady, Ireland, moving virtually all of its disk drive production outside the U.S.

2. Saks Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Birmingham, Ala., the department store company, said it would close a Parisian store in Orlando, Fla., which employs about 140.

3. Kendle International Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...Cincinnati, a researcher for drug and biotechnology companies, said it would cut about 125 full-time jobs, or 8% of its work force, because of industrywide slowdown.
   [You have to wonder where and how they're cooking up the GDP growth figures.]

4. Looking Glass closing, laying off 60 workers - Failed deal dooms Cambridge [Mass.] game developer, by Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe, C3.
   Just weeks after releasing its newest computer game...Looking Glass Studios is closing its doors and laying off its 60 employees [100%].... The collapse of the company was sealed this week when the leading game distributor Eidos Interactive backed out of a plan to acquire Looking Glass.... People...are buying low-end PCs right now [which] aren't built to handle 3D interactive games.... As a result...the kind of premium-quality games made by Looking Glass are losing out to simpler, cheaper games that run well on low-end computers....

1. LTV to close mining operation in Minnesota, AP via NYT, C4.
   The LTV Corp.'s steel subsidiary plans to close the LTV Steel Mining Co., a Minnesota operation that employs 1400 people and produced 7m tons of taconite iron ore pellets used in making steel last year. LTV officials said yesterday that the operation was no longer able to produce taconite pellets of competitive quality or cost. The first 120 workers will be laid off on Sunday when LTV Steel Mining, based in Hoyt Lakes, Minn., suspends stripping operations that involve removing layers of soil and rock that cover the taconite ore. The other jobs will be eliminated over the next year as other operations wind down....

1. Sunterra, struggling for survival, to dismiss 930, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...An owner of time-share vacation resorts said late on Monday that it would dismiss 930 workers at company HQ in Orlando.... Sunterra also said it had stopped all sales at resorts in...Fla.,...SC,...Tex.,...Colo.,...NM, and other locations. While the reduction in sales and marketing jobs [was] expected to reduce expenses, Sunterra still may not be able to continue operations....

1. Layoffs at J. D. Edwards, Bloomberg via NYT, C8.
   ...A maker of business-management software..\..disclosed plans [yester]day to lay off 800 employees, or 13% of its work force [and] said cutting the jobs would help save money on office space and other related expenses.
   [This "high tech" company must be in the dark ages. The way you save money on office space these days is just have your employees telecommute from home.]

2. Disney's Toysmart.com is closed and offered for sale, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...An Internet toy retailer majority owned by the Walt Disney Co., shut down and was put up for sale after talks to provide more financing failed. Toysmart.com said it stopped taking orders on Friday, and that its 170 employees were let go. The company, which is based in Waltham, Mass., is the latest of a few Internet toy sellers to experience financial problems.
   [Never mind just toy sellers (another was RedRocket.com according to "E-commerce report" by Bob Tedeschi, 5/29/00 Boston Globe C5 & a gift shop, Cybershop.com), there's been NatureCompany.com, DrKoop.com (5/20 below), CarOrder.com (5/13 below), AltaVista.com (5/11 below) and MyWay.com (5/10 below & 4/28), Cozone.com (4/08); then on our bankruptcy page, Boo.com (5/19), Craftshop.com (5/16); and of course, Amazon.com's ongoing red ink and BarnesandNoble.com's pulling down of Barnes and Noble NON-dot-com. Then 6/22/00 NYT C1 adds APBnews.com (6/6), InsWeb (6/6) and Salon.com (6/8), not to mention DEN.net, ThirdAge Media, and living.com of unknown dates.]

1. ProxyMed to cut work force 20% in revamping, Dow Jones, NYT, B3.
   ...A maker of software used by health care professionals said yesterday that its top management [CEO, CFO, COO, CMO + sr. sales exec] had resigned and that it planned to cut the company's overall work force by 20% in a major reorganization. The company, based in Ft. Lauderdale...had nearly 400 employees at the end of 1999....
   [Let's see, 20% of 400 is 80 jobcuts.]

2. DrKoop.com Inc., NYT, B3.
   ...Austin, Tex., the Internet health company, said it had laid off about 35% of its staff since the beginning of April.
   [So how many jobs is that, morons? Answer finally came on 5/21/00, "Struggling health site drkoop.com to lay off 30," AP via Boston Globe, F7: "...The company's 35% reduction of its staff since April 1 is occurring through attrition, layoffs and the termination of various contracts.... Drkoop.com's annual report counted 185 full-time employees as of Feb. 29."]

1. Dresdner Bank expected to cut 5,000 jobs [about 10% of total] - Severe step follows discarded plan to merge with Deutsche Bank, by Edmund Andrews, NYT, C5.
   ...Like most other big banks in Germany, Dresdner is under tremendous pressure to reduce costs in its retail banking business....
   [Pressure from whom. Pressure from where. Top executive boredom? This all sounds like CEgO tantrum time. OK, so they don't merge and Dresdner lays off 5k, so there, nyaa, nyaa. What would have happened if they had merged?]
   Dresder and Deutsche had planned to eliminate a combined 16,000 jobs, with about 5,900 of them in retail banking. Dresdner executives "knew" [our quotes - ed.] they would have to consolidate operations whether or not they merged with another bank.
   [These morons still don't "get" the connection between their workforce and their domestic consumer base, and if they once start down the macho road of downsizing "just" 10% this year, instead of keeping the whole company together and, like VW, cutting hours 10% for everyone - including themselves - they unleash a self-fueling firestorm of damage to their consumer base that they'll find hard to control - sort of like the "controlled burnings" started recently near Los Alamos and the Grand Canyon. In the future, mass layoffs will be banned (except in pre-liquidation), but individual firing for cause will be easier.]
   But the severity of the anticipated job cuts...is far more than banking industry analysts had foreseen.
   [Yeah, like this is an Act of God or something. The poor executives "have no choice." This is being "forced" upon them.]
   The cutbacks would also be the first concrete move by Dresdner's new chairman, Bernd Fahrholz [trans. "Burnt Tripwood"??], who took over on May 1 after Bernhard Walter resigned the top job....
   [Guess Bernd figures this is how to show them all what big huebos he has. All so simple. Bernhard bailed just in time.]
   Mr. Walter, who had negotiated the proposed merger with Deutsche Bank, announced plans to quit the day after he called off the merger talks in early April. Deutsche, which would have clearly dominated the new institution, had insisted on gutting most of Dresdner's investment banking subsidiary....
   ["I can't have my way, so I'm gonna take my toys and not play with you any more!" Why was he negotiating this corporate harikari in the first place? - Executive boredom? Executive failure-of-imagination?]
   Dresdner has been fighting to halt a defection of investment bankers who were rattled by the near-shutdown of their business.
   [Why are they now fighting this? Clearly they don't give a d*mn about their own unique investment banking subsidiary. What two-faced morons.]
   But analysts say the bank must also reduce costs and find a way out of its problems in retail banking.
   [Oh, so that's who's calling the tune - stock analysts, maybe a few of them even in their own investment banking subsidiary, hmmm? The voice of short-term speculation, long-term suicide. Is anyone explaining why "the bank must also reduce costs"? Is anyone claiming that they aren't in profit? That they're losing money? We haven't seen it. This is, simply put, barefaced disregard for the old adage, "If it works, don't fix it."]
   The problem is that unilaterally shutting bank branches almost certainly means losing customers to rivals with branches across the street. Merging businesses with overlapping branch networks would have made it possible to close offices without losing customers....
   [Don't count on it. The Fleet-BankBoston merger in New England is a supreme demonstration of such a "march of folly." FleetBoston has enraged so many customers, like colleague Kate, that as soon as they detach their ETFs, they're gone, and the small, neighborhood banks are going to benefit. Fat-brained, megabank Fleet has just turned itself into a public-despised dinosaur. Same as the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe (2000) and Union Pacific-Southern Pacific (1996) railroad-merger screwups. And looks like big-exec big-bank-itis isn't unique to New England -]
   Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest, has come in for scathing criticism for mishandling the negotiations and for the way its top executives fought one another.
   [Tantrum Time. Is this really about the testosterone cycle? - a cycle in the affairs of males, whether Yankee or Teuton, whereby they can't quite sail smoothly without indulging some FIGHT instinct in their brainstem? Or is this just big babyhood? In future, these jocks will be able to grab guns and go into special preserves to hunt - one another. And leave the rest of us OUT OF IT.]

2. [And now, in another dramatic case of trying to silence the suicidal analysts by firing a few -]
   PaineWebber to close investment bank unit, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...said it was closing the investment-banking unit J. C. Bradford & Co., the brokerage firm it agreed to buy for $620m last month.
   [Well there's a cool $620m wasted. Talk about the "takeover-downsizing connection"!]
   The plan will eliminate about 90 investment banker and analyst positions in Nashville.... J. C. Bradford, based in Nashville, was purchased...mainly for its network of 900 brokers. These brokers are valuable as the company's PaineWebber broker-dealer unit tries to gain access to wealthy investors in the Southeast. PaineWebber [was already] the nation's 4th-largeste brokerage firm....
   [Again, that desperation - more and more people straining for the disposable income that's concentrating in astronomically in fewer and fewer hands. In the future, takeovers will be banned and companies will have to expand their market share in the "old fashioned" way - by offering better products or services, or offering the same quality for lower prices. Despite all their lip service to "capitalist competition," our big-baby CEOs are all too prone to duck into the "shortcut" of takeover.]

1. Amway to cut 11% of its staff to reduce costs, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...The direct sales giant said yesterday that it planned to cut nearly 11% of its global workforce, or 1,300 jobs, as part of a restructuring expected to save $300m annually...in response to sluggish sales and the changing business environment. About 900 jobs will be cut at the company's world HQ in Ada, Mich. Another 260 will be cut overseas with the remainder [140] of the cuts coming from Amway's Calif. operations in Buena Park and Lakeview. The privately held Amway employs about 12,000 people worldwide.

2. Arch Coal Inc., NYT, C4.
   ...St. Louis, the 2nd-largest coal producer in the U.S., said it would cut most production at its Coal Creek mine in Wyoming and might idle the site entirely.

1. Schlumberger buys the assets of CellNet Data Systems, Bloomberg via NYT, C3.
   [First, we jump down to...]
   ... CellNet...filed for federal bankruptcy protection in February..\..
   [So when the story begins like this...]
   Schlumberger Ltd., an oil-service company that is expanding into meter-reading and electronic-commerce technologies said yesterday that it had bought the assets of the wireless-network provider....
   [...we know it means there aren't any employees left to "buy" along with Cellnet's assets. We can only hope that a few of them were able to jump over to the Schlumberger "ship" as the Cellnet "iceberg" melted, since the start of when Schlumberger...]
   ...already uses Cellnet...as a contractor \for\ meter-reading....

2. Helen Thomas...resigns reporter's job, by David Stout, NYT, A16.
   ...UPI has closed many of its far-flung bureaus. As of Monday, it had 157 employees....
   [Tuesday's story (5/16) on Monday's takeover was "The Unification Church's news affiliate buys UPI," by Christopher Marquis, NYT, A19. That story put it this way -]
   ...Troubled by dwindling profits in recent years, UPI twice declared bankruptcy and endured a nearly continuous stream of layoffs and asset sales.... Currently...107 [employees] are based in Washington and the rest in London, Latin America and Asia....

1. Renault, Nissan to cut jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   France's second-biggest carmaker, Renault S.A., and the Nissan Motor Co., said they expected to save 1B euros ($915m) by 2005 as they combine sales forces in Europe, where they will cut 504 jobs....

2. Pillsbury Co., NYT, C4.
   ...Minneapolis, the food unit of Diageo PLC and the biggest seller of bakery-mix products in North America, said it would close a plant in McMinnville, Ore., and dismiss 95 workers to cut costs.

3. Sunbeam Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...Boca Raton, Fla., which makes small appliances, said it would close its remaining 11 outlet stores in the U.S. and Canada and dismiss about 60 people in an attempt to lower costs.

• Death of a college - For Bradford College in Haverhill MA, this year's 197th commencement will be the last. Did it have to end this way?, by Neil Miller, Boston Globe Magazine, cover story: 12, 29.
  ...The school was originally founded in 1803 as a girls' academy, becoming a women's junior college in 1932.... Under...Dorothy Bell...1940 to 1967 [it] was considered the most intellectual of the Little Sisters (the junior-college version of the Seven Sisters), attracting the daughters of wealthy families like the Armours and the Rockefellers.... [Its] women dated Dartmouth men.... The admission and retention problems \that started in 1982-89\ in its glory days under..\..a "whizz kid" from the Carnegie Foundation named Arthur Levine [ohoh, the "not one of us" factor? - ed.] became...major for a school that had a small endowment and depended on tuition to cover most of its operating costs.... In September, 1999, the school suffered a shortfall of 31 [out of a maximum of 600] students. The trustees became convinced that the situation was untenable.... The administration had feared that as many as half of the students might not return after Christmas break; in fact, the decline in the second-semester enrollment was only slightly above normal.... But when the students did return...they found [that] although almost all the 35 full-time staff [and faculty?] members remained, most of the...adjunct faculty had been let go....
  [...leaving these 35 full-time jobs to vanish at the end of this spring semester when the College shuts its doors.]

1. [From "bee's knees" to bleak prospects - just like that:]
   Ford to close British plant, laying off 1900 workers - Overcapacity is cited in the latest crisis for British automaking, by Alan Cowell, NYT, B2.
   [Ah, another of those great depression-heralding terms, "overcapacity."]
   DAGENHAM, England...- With Britain's automotive industry swinging from crisis to crisis, the Ford Motor Co. announced [yesterd]day that it would close its biggest car assembly plant in this country by early 2002.... Ford attributed the move to what it called the company's "totally unacceptable" financial performance in the whole of Europe....
   Outside Gate 34 of Ford's assembly plant in this working-class settlement east of London, Steve Johnston...said that after 23 years of working for Ford here, he had one question: "Why Dagenham? We were told we were the most efficient in Europe...."
   [What if efficiency plus downsizing, instead of efficiency plus timesizing, is the root of the problem? Labor just doesn't get it. Unless they force the workweek down and spread the earnings as technology raises efficiency, they run smack dab into the Ford-Reuther paradox - F: "Let's see you unionize these robots!"  R: "Let's see you sell them cars." And once you quit forcing down that workweek, you and the robots flood the market and you lose leverage and wage raises -]
   "...We are cheaper to hire than the German worker. But we are the easiest to sack because there's no legislation to protect us."
   Jimmy Maddox...with 31 years at Ford, expressed similar anger, saying Ford's workers felt they had gone from management assurances about their future to bleak prospects. "Last year we were the bee's knees; now we're the poor relations.... They can wipe us out just like that"....
   [Guess we'll just have to have another big war to eliminate all our redundant workers - or can we do it the intelligent way this time and just eliminate the redundant working hours, by timesizing?]
   "We are very angry and will do all we can to reverse their decision," said Sir Ken Jackson of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union.
   [Hey, at least he has the satisfaction of being a Knight of the British Empire while he starves. But he's no brighter than the rest. We just have 3 words for you, Sir Ken - CUT THE WORKWEEK.]

2. CarOrder.com Inc., NYT, B3.
   ...Austin, Tex., a car seller on the Internet, has laid off 100 workers, or nearly one-third of its work force, as it struggles with competition in the online auto sales industry.

• Cyrk, Inc., NYT, C4.
  ...Gloucester, Mass., a designer of consumer brand promotions, said it planned to cut 15% of its work force, about 175 employees, to reduce annual costs by as much as $15m.

1. [Specific]
   AltaVista to cut 6% of its work force - Parent CMGI aims to reassure wary investors, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, C4.
   ...about 50 more positions.... AltaVista has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since it was acquired by CMGI last year, but the layoffs and other steps will enable AltaVista to report positive cash flow by December, said David Emanuel, a company spokesman.... AltaVista has cut nearly 60 other jobs since last fall.... [see story below on 5/10]

2. [General]
   Report: State's health jobs in sharp drop - Medicare cuts have cost 15,700 posts [since 1997], says study funded by medical group, by Liz Kowalczyk, Boston Globe, C4.
   ...A reduction of 22,900 more jobs is projected by 2005. Only Louisiana has experienced a sharper decline in health care jobs over the past 2 years. The Massachusetts Hospital Association paid about $80,000 to commission the report on the state's health care industry....
   [Let's see. First we gutted agriculture. Then we gutted manufacturing, saying that services are the jobs of the future. Now, sector by sector, we're gutting services. First, banking nationwide lost 95,000 jobs a year since 1995. Now, (15700+22900)/8 = Mass. healthcare alone is losing 4825 jobs a year every year 1995-2005.

1. BMW sells Rover to British [Phoenix] Consortium for $15 and promise of aid, by Alan Cowell, NYT, C1, C4.
   ...While BMW's previous [rescue] negotiations with Alchemy Partners had been expected to lead to thousands of job losses, Phoenix said there would be fewer than 1,000 layoffs at Longbridge [plant near Birmingham]....

2. Tech-sector downturn pushes CMGI into layoffs - Job cuts at units, AltaVista, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, D1.
   CMGI Inc. has been one of the [New England] region's highest-flying Internet investment companies, but lately it has resorted to a distinctly old economy tactic: layoffs.
   [High tech, low intelligence. The real new economy tactic is timesizing, not downsizing.]
   Two companies controlled by Andover [Mass.]-based CMGI have eliminated 72 jobs in recent weeks as the parent company presses its divisions to control costs.... In addition, Internet search firm AltaVista Co., majority-owned by CMGI, has cut about 60 jobs since last fall and is considering more cuts [see story above 5/11], following last month's postponement of its initial public offering [IPO]....
   [Amazing - all the junk e-firms that have already IPO'ed and crashed while the best-known e-search firm hasn't even IPO'ed yet.]
   While the layoffs have affected just a small fraction of CMGI's 5,000 employees, they reflect a shift in focus away from pure growth [ah, "pure" growth???] to business fundamentals - a shift also playing out in other Internet companies.... CMGI hadn't announced the recent job cuts, but yesterday it confirmed about 45 jobs are being eliminated from its CMGI Solutions Web site development unit. Most of the jobs will be shed from among the roughly 150 employees the company has at offices in Andover and in Washington, DC. The positions are being eliminated as CMGI combines the unit with Tallan Inc. of Glastonbury, Conn., in which it purchased a majority stake for about $920m in stock.
   [Again, the employment&consumerbase-bashing effects of a takeover.]
   Last month [story on 4/28/00 below], CMGI also confirmed its MyWay.com unit would lay off 27 employees....
   [Well, there's 27 employees who won't have the luxury of doing it "My Way" for a while. Hypocritical name under the circumstances, wouldn't you say? So let's see, we've got the 27 killed MyWay plus the 45 at CMGI "Solutions", yielding the subtotal of 72 mentioned above, plus the 60 at AltaVista, for a grand total of 132 lost high-tech jobs, minus the 27 again which we already counted on 4/28, leaving us with a net total of 105 additional jobcuts to count here - 105 of its 5000+800= 1.8% of the 5800-strong CMGI+AltaVista workforce.]
   The 60 jobs eliminated at AltaVista, based in Palo Alto...mainly relate to a shift at AltaVista's Shopping.com unit from a consumer goods site to a shopping directory service. [An] AltaVista spokesman...said the company added other jobs in recent months that offset the cuts.... The parent company also has tried to find jobs at its other units for most employees whose positions were eliminated. But more layoffs could be coming. "We're studying further cuts as we respond to market conditions," [the spokesman] said. AltaVista has about 800 employees, including about 80 in Andover, where its Raging Bull chat service is based.
   ...Analyst Steven Frankel said the cuts show CMGI is paying heed to new market dynamics. "Nowhere is it etched in stone that the Internet was a pathway to riches for everyone," he said.
   [Oh really? Well, that's not the way the media have been spinning it for the last 5 years.]
   But AltaVista should be careful its layoffs don't undercut its progress toward an IPO, he said.
   [Oh gawd, no. Heaven forfend anything should undercut a web IPO!]

• Molybdenum cutback, Dow Jones via NYT, C2.
  The Climax Molybdenum Co., a subsidiary of the Phelps Dodge Corp., a mining and metal-processing company based in Phoenix, said [yester]day that it would reduce production by about 20% and lay off 130 workers at its mine in Henderson, Colo. The company said the cutbacks were a response to the oversupply of molybdenum - a metallic element used to strengthen and harden steel and iron - and the continued low prices on the world market. Climax Molybdenum also said it was reducing its mine production this year.
  [Ah, those sonorous words heard so often during the Great Depression - "oversupply," "continued low prices," "reducing production." But of course, we don't have a depression. We have an economic boom - just like 1928.]

1. Greenbrier, freight-car maker, plans layoffs, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   ...The [Oregon-based] 3rd-largest freight-car maker laid off 500 employees yesterday at a [1,300-employee] plant in Nova Scotia, or 11% of its [total 4,500] work force, in response to a 50% drop in North American orders [from 86,000 in 1998 to 41,000 in 1999]...as industrywide demand declined. The company plans to cut administrative costs by 10% annually.... The company expects that orders will pick up and that it will be able to rehire the 500 workers at the plant in Trenton, Nova Scotia....
   [Here is a perfect situation for timesizing instead of downsizing and upsizing. Auto companies in Detroit deal with fluctuating demand like this all the time and handle it by manipulating their workweek, not their workforce - see latest example by DaimlerChrysler on 4/29/00. Greenbrier execs risk losing part of their valuable skillset by "jerking around" their employees like this. They're aggravating a market downturn instead of cushioning it, and by excluding themselves from any direct experience of the adjustment they are mandating, they're impairing their company's own cybernetics (feedback-response system) and making themselves sitting ducks for any more responsive and responsible competitors.]

2. Westinghouse Electric Co., NYT, B3.
   ...Monroeville, Pa., a maker of nuclear plant equipment, said it planned to close the ABB-CE nuclear fuel plant in Hematite, Mo., in a consolidation that would eliminate 200 jobs within the next 18 months.
   [The good news is, there'll be 200 fewer people dependent on this dangerous, unecological industry for their livelihood.]

5/5/2000  2 downsizings mentioned, totaling 6750 newly announced lost jobs -

1. Panamco plans to cut costs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Panamerican Beverages Inc...said it would lay off 6,750 employees...about 14% of its work force as part of a reorganization plan to improve productivity.
   [So it's not increasing output. It's only increasing average output per hour of human worker time - by relying more on automation. So much for the notion that "technology creates more jobs than it destroys." And below - another case of the same inherently temporary fix - because automata don't constitute customers.]

2. [This is a bizarre re-announcement of part of a big, previously announced layoff, proving there are still lots of people in Europe, even in France with its work-spreading 35-hour workweek, who do not have a clue -]
   Cuts in French tire jobs, AP via NYT, C4.
   The French tire maker Michelin said it was planning to cut 1,880 jobs in the next 3 years at 4 French factories as part of a productivity drive it announced last September. The newly disclosed jobs cuts [sic]...
   [Ah, these aren't "newly disclosed" - they're just picked out and spotlighted for some reason.]
   ...are part of previously disclosed plans to cut 7,500 jobs across Europe [see our 9/9/99 item]. Employees affected by the French factory job cut plan will be offered either early retirement or other positions within the company. Michelin had said last year the planned European job cuts were needed as part of a drive to raise productivity by 20% within 3 years.

5/04/2000  1 downsizing reported, totaling 500 lost jobs -

1. Agco will close Missouri plant and dismiss workers, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The farm-equipment maker said yesterday that it would close its plant in Independence, Mo., and dismiss about 500 workers, or 5% or its work force, because of a decline in demand for farm equipment.
   [Well there goes their independence.]
   - The company, the maker of Massey Ferguson equipment, said it would take a charge of about $20m to close the plant, which is expected to cut production costs by about $10m a year. Manufacturing will be moved to Agco's plant in Hesston, Kan., or will be contracted to 3rd-party manufacturers.
   [Agco should be doing the same thing as DaimlerChrysler last week (4/29/2000) - cutting hours, not jobs - timesizing, not downsizing. With our inflexible definition of "full" employment (stuck at the 1940-level of 40 hrs/wk), we're downsizing, along with our "fully" employed workforce, our consumer base and our whole future.]

5/03/2000  3 downsizings reported, totaling 1794 lost jobs -

1. Roberds, a furniture [and appliance] retailer, will close all its stores, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...which employ 1,300 workers. Roberds, which has operated under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since January, said yesterday that it closed its 15 stores and 2 distribution centers in Ohio, Georgia and Indiana to conduct an inventory to prepare for liquidation.... The company has closed its Roberds Grand megastore in suburban Cincinnati, and 8 stores and a warehouse in Florida.

2. Tower Air halts its passenger service, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...The no-frills airline that filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year [though] still operating charters and military flights..\..has halted passenger service, leaving ticket holders scrambling to find space on other carriers.... Tower Air Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection in February in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. The same month, the airline, based at Kennedy Airport, said it intended to cut 300 jobs, or 19% of its work force, and reduce the size of its fleet.
   [Neither the NYT nor the Boston Globe picked this up in Feb. so we'll count it now.]
   Tower was known for low fares, less than $400 for a round trip from NYC to LA, for example, and spotty service. Delays were routine, and Tower's fleet of aging Boeing 747's required frequent maintenance.
   [Quality problems, eh? Maybe if Tower mobilized and motivated its entire workforce with a lifetime guarantee of employment in return for flexibility in its workweek and proratable pay - for everyone including top executives - they'd give everyone some quality free time during which creative ideas for a turnaround would emerge - especially in the area of quality. And as Lincoln Electric with its "open door to management" and "everyone a manager" culture can testify, ideas for higher quality and efficiency frequently come from ordinary employees and not from top executives. The idea that working harder (not smarter) can solve everything has flared up again mightily since the late 1980s despite lip service in the other direction. But for over a century now we've had the saying, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" - and dull people are not creative.]

3. Metropolitan Mortgage, Dow Jones via NYT, C13.
   MIAMI - ...A subsidiary of the insurance company Transamerica said [yester]day that it would cease operations and sell its loan portfolio. All 194 employees of Metropolitan, which sells mortgages in the Southeast, will lose their jobs. About half the positions are in Florida. The company said it would immediately stop originating loans and shut down completely in 6 months. Transamerica was acquired last year by the Dutch insurer Aegon.
   [Again, the fatal takeover-downsizing connection.]

For more details, our laypersons' guide to our great economic future Timesizing, Not Downsizing is available at bookstores in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass. or from *Amazon.com online.

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