Timesizing® Associates

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Downsizings Aug. 16-31/2000
[Commentary] ©2000 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

8/31/2000  3 corporate downsizings reported, totaling 120+?? jobcuts, and 1 ongoing national downsizing involving hundreds of thousands -

1. Letsbuyit slashes [80] jobs, posts sales jump, by Steven Silber, Reuters via AOLNews via RadioTony, 30 Aug 2000 14:23:00.
   Money-losing Internet retailer Letsbuyit.com [will] shed [20%] of its staff in an effort to streamline costs, even as its Q2 sales surged 82% from Q1. The UK-based retailer said Q2 sales jumped to...$6.44m, with its gross margin rising to 9.8% from 2.9%. Letsbuyit, which in July admitted it was burning [$4.46m] per month [will] reduce its work force to 320 from 400 people by centralising European procurement, logistics and marketing activities.... Most of the layoffs are temporary staff and advisers.... Letsbuyit...plans to break even in 2003.... Average spend per order rose to 157 euros in the Q2 from 108 euros in Q1....
   [Funny how all these companies think they're going to make big profits from markets composed of somebody else's employees. Sort of like 'money for nothing.' In the meantime, they're serving to centrifuge some of the fabulously concentrated wealth in the hands of relatively few 'investors,' and forestalling global depression another month or year.]

2. DrKoop.com cuts staff by a third, by Catherine Greenman, NYT, C20.
   ...The struggling health information Web site plans to cut its work force by [40 people], bringing the number of employees down to 80. The cuts come after a group of investors provided the company with a much needed $27.5m cash infusion last week. DrKoop.com laid off 35% of its staff in May.... Said Rachel Terrace, a health analyst with Jupiter Communications, "When the investors took over...they wanted to start running drkoop like a business, and their first order of business, to lay off employees, is not surprising."
   [In a pre-depression period, investors forget they need sustainable employment to get sustainable salaries to get sustainable spendings to get sustainable markets to get sustainable productivity to invest in - they just don't seem to be able to follow the chain that far - so their "first order of business" is always to "lay off employees." Then it's only a question of time while the little reductions "domino" through the chain of consequences and mount up to critical vacuum levels, before the investment bubble fragments. Sort of like the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, NJ in 1937. And the demoralizing effects of layoffs are sort of like the rocket-fuel-based paint they had all over the Hindenburg when it sparked.]
   ...In June, the company said it had 127 employees.
   [This last statement is from "Dot-coms cut 4,805 jobs in Sept.", Bloomberg via 9/26/00 Boston Globe, C6. What it means is that DrKoop.com cut an additional 7 jobs between June and the end of August that haven't even been mentioned.]

3. Caterpillar expects to cut $1B in costs, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...over the next several years and increase sales 50%, to $30B, by 2006, Glen Barton, the chairman and chief executive, said yesterday..\.. The maker of construction and mining equipment...which is based in Peoria, Ill., plans to reach the cost-cutting goal by reducing material costs, lead times and inventory, and through attrition of the company work force, Mr. Barton told analysts in Boston....
   [Everybody wants to do more with less. Sounds good and BuckminsterFullerine at first hearing, but getting more profits out of a smaller and smaller workforce, even if they're all earning more money - which they sure aren't - is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone.]

4. [And you think we've got contradiction. Check out China -]
   Factory closings in China arouse workers to fury, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, NYT, front page.
   TIANJIN - ...Last week, desperate Chinese workers expecting layoffs seized six foreign managers from Meite [Packaging]'s American parent company and held them hostage in the factory for 40 hours. In the space of a decade, the Meite plant was transformed from a state-owned company making pipes to a beverage packaging firm jointly owned by the Chinese and an American corporation - and just recently, to a factory wholly owned by the foreign partner, the Ball Corporation of Broomfield, Colo. [- and just last week, to a nearly deserted, closed-factory compound]. And so in this sweltering summer, middle-aged workers who not so many years ago were promised cradle-to-grave security by the state factory found their livelihoods suddenly threatened by a capitalist corporate restructuring and felt they had nowhere to turn....
   [But that's only stupid, short-sighted and unsustainable "win-lose capitalism." There's also intelligent, long-sighted and sustainable "win-win capitalism," where the principle of "heads I win, tails you lose" is replaced with the principles of "all sacrifice together, starting at the top" like Lincoln Electric, and "all benefit together, starting at the bottom." This is the tradition of the real men of the old, wild American West, who always took care of their horse first. The gutless, ball-less and brainless CEOs of today, led by covertly suicidal dopes like Chainsaw Dunlap, just float to the surface in pre-depression periods when technological efficiency speeds up and workweek reduction slows down. Pick one - unsustainable downsizing capitalism or sustainable timesizing capitalism.]
   ...The workers' frustrations that touched off the incident are commonplace, leading to hundreds if not thousands of protests in recent years.... The sink-or-swim strategy promoted by Prime Minister Zhu Rongji...has been painful for China's tens of millions of workers, echoing similar privatization efforts in the former Soviet bloc.
   [They asked us for a fish, and we gave them a stone - in terms of the stupidest, most unsustainable form of capitalism available! - Nothing like the liberation capitalism of Lord Leverhulme of Lever Bros. and W.K. Kellogg of Kellogg's Cereals chronicled by Ben Hunnicutt, or James and John Lincoln of *Lincoln Electric and the guys at *Nucor Steel.]
   ...Said Anita Chan, a labor expert at Australian National University, "These are people who worked for the state and [were told] they would work and then retire and enjoy...health care, pensions.... But then one day it's just [pulled away from them]. And they are 40 and have many decades of life ahead of them. What will they live on?"
   [Agism. Warring classes set up by age.]
   ...The folding of four factories into one meant layoffs, and the company invited some workers at Meite, mostly people in their 20's, to move with it, a worker who answered the phone at the plant said..\.. When a delegation of workers failed to persuade the management to keep [another] factory going, some of the workers attempted suicide in the office of the factory's Communist Party secretary, who had sided with the new owners. One woman swallowed a bottle of pesticide, and two men slashed their wrists....
   ["Kill me now fast here, not slow nowhere later!"]
   The foreigners - an American, two Malaysians and three Hong Kong residents - were released after 40 hours early Friday. ...A worker at the factory said the severance payments had been raised a bit. But in a city with hundreds of thousands of laid-off and unemployed workers, that may provide little comfort. Of 30 jobs listed outside the district employment center near the factory, only one was listed as open to applicants over 35....
   [China's a big place population-wise. They have over a sixth of Earth's over six billion population. Do they expect people to just sit down and starve quietly? Why not be honest about it and kill everyone over 35? Unlike today's gutless, ball-less, brainless CEOs, at least Hitler and Stalin were efficient about mass murder. These morons just want to privatize and concentrate profit, and nationalize and centrifuge loss - and expect people to roll over and die. But there's no security for CEOs or anyone else in that. That just privatizes and concentrates an illusion of job security, while nationalizing and centrifuging the actuality of life insecurity. The alternative is a capitalism based on timesizing, not downsizing.]

1. Gtech Holdings...cut [175] jobs and [will] take a charge, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   The lottery systems operator [has] cut its work force by 4%...as it moves to focus on gambling. The company, which is based in West Greenwich, R.I...was making changes aimed at focusing...on its machine and Internet lottery business, and reducing the size of its peripheral offerings.... It said the moves should generate $24-26m in annual net savings starting in fiscal 2002. Gtech said it might have to make similar moves in the future....
   [Here's a rare admission. Usually they claim "this is only a one-time thing."]

2. Auto supplier Tower lays off 100 due to tire recall, Reuters via AOLNews via RadioTony, 29Aug2000, 14:47:49 EDT.
   ...Tower Automotive Inc...laid off 100 workers indefinitely because of Firestone's tire recall and the resulting effect on Tower customer Ford Motor Co.
   [Guess with Ford diverting effort from making trucks and now SUV's - to take care of its big tire recall and replacement - they don't need so many autoparts.]
   Tower also said another 200 workers will be furloughed for one week next week. All the layoffs are in the company's Milwaukee plant, which employs 3,000 people....
   [So let's see, 100/3000= 3.3% layoff (bad) and 200/3000= 6.6% furlough (good). A furlough is a type of timesizing (trimming worktime, not jobs) that operates on a jerky alternating day, week or month basis instead of just trimming hours as little as necessary all along the way. In this case, the company is doing a one-time weekly alternation - this week on, next week off, following week back on and hopefully continuing on. The point is, these 200 still have their jobs and Tower still has their skills. The other 100 - it's not so sure. For further discussion of this Tower case, see under today's (8/30/2000) Glimmers of Intelligence/Hope.]

3. [We heard about this heartstring-tugger on the TV news so we fished for the details -]
   Mattel moves View-Master to Mexico, Ottawa Citizen via hrlive.com/layoff.cgi.
   Later this year, Mattel Inc. will close the Beaverton, Ore., plant where the 60-year-old toy View-Master has been manufactured for more than three decades, lay off all its workers, and move production to Tijuana, Mexico. The move will leave Etch-A-Sketch, hand-produced in Ohio, as the last baby boomer mechanical toy still in production in this country. The Beaverton plant employed up to 2,000 people during the mid-70s, but is now down to about 60 people.
   [The destruction of America from within continues - at the hands of its own 'captains of industry.' What a surprise to find out that we didn't need the Soviet Union to destroy us at all. Our own short-sighted business schools and top executives could do it perfectly well themselves all along, and are now proceeding with a vengeance.]

1. Wachovia plans to cut about 8% of its work force, AP via NYT, C2.
   CHARLOTTE, N.C. - ...One of the nation's largest banks plans to cut about 1,800 jobs...as part of a sweeping revamping intended to reduce expenses by $100m a year. The announcement [yester]day comes after similar cutbacks at North Carolina's two other largest banks, Bank of America and First Union, both based in Charlotte. All three companies have been looking for ways to improve efficiency.
   "The resource realignment announced today is another step in a thoughtful process that will make Wachovia stronger and more competitive," said L. M. Baker Jr., the chairman and chief executive.
   [Reminiscent of the "body counts" in the Korean War, but now, past "efficiency" and "resource realignment" to a "thoughtful process"??? Give us a break! If this process was at all thoughtful, Baker would not be cutting morale and his own best markets (his employees) along with his costs - he'd just be trimming hours for all, including himself.]

2. Sabre Holdings says it will cut 1,200 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The largest travel-reservation company said yesterday that it planned to cut...11% of its work force to reduce costs.... Sabre, based in Fort Worth, will take a $20m charge in Q3 for cuts through attrition and dismissals, a move it expects will save about $100m a year starting next year..\.. It also agreed to buy a rival, GetThere Inc., for $757m to gain business clients....
   [This is an unusual bundled downsizing-takeover story. Are any CEOs noticing that it's getting harder to grow markets the normal way - it's easier to cheat and acquire other companies - and their market share?]

3. Paccar is expected to lay off up to 500 in Ohio, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's 2nd-largest truck maker may lay off...at a plant in Chillicothe, Ohio...almost a third [31% to be exact] of the factory's work force, as demand slows, a city official said. The layoffs are expected to begin after workers return from a two-week shutdown on Sept. 11, Matt Allen, development director for the southern Ohio city, said company officials told him. Paccar declined to comment.
   [So, more "discipline of the workforce" when what we need is discipline of top management.]
   The plant has about 1,600 workers. The company, based in Bellevue, Wash., and other makers of heavy trucks have been hurt as North American production slipped to a 270,000-unit annual pace in the first half from a record 316,000 for all of 1999. Paccar shares rose....
   [So, no top-management discipline there!]

4. MicroStrategy to lay off 10% of staff, take Q3 charge, Reuters via AOLNews via RadioTony, 28Aug2000, 19:50:41 EDT.
   NEW YORK - [A] maker [of] software to mine vast amounts of data..\..whose stock has never recovered from a plunge after a restatement of earnings...several years [ago, will] lay off...234 people. The company [will] take a $4-8m charge in Q3 to cover the costs of restructuring, which is expected to save...about $25m a year....

5. PlanetRx.com moving to Memphis, Reuters via AOLNews via RadioTony, 28Aug2000, 20:33:44 EDT.
   The ailing online drugstore [will] move its South San Francisco headquarters to Memphis, Tenn., in a move to slash its expenses and keep the business afloat. The company, which has had a series of troubles ranging from missed revenue forecasts and layoffs to the departures of key managers and a collapse in the value of the stock, said it hopes the move to Tennessee will cut its expenses in half. "We're taking this move as a logical step to...dramatically slow our cash burn rate," ...CEO Michael Beindorff said.... "We think this is necessary for our long-term health."
   [Ha, what do today's CEOs know about the long-term?!]
   Since Memphis is the site of the company's distribution center, customer care organization and pharmacy, and already houses about 3/4 of its workers, PlanetRx said it will achieve some immediate savings from shifting the rest of its operation there.
   Beindorff said the company will also take the opportunity to eliminate some redundancies, and expects to cut 40-50 [say, 45] positions. After laying off 70 employees in June, PlanetRx currently has a staff of about 315, 80 of which [ah, don't they mean "whom" - or have we completely dehumanized employees?] are based on the West Coast. Beindorff said it will retain a small West Coast editorial operation but transfer or eliminate the other California positions.
   [So, 45 now plus 70 in June and not counted then gives us a total of 115 layoffs.]
   PlanetRx.com also announced that its CFO Steve Venezuela had resigned.... Earlier this month, William Razzouk, the company's chairman, resigned to pursue other opportunities. For all the upheaval the company has been in since it went public last fall as one of the most high-profile Internat companies, Beindorff maintains PlanetRx is still healthier than a lot of dot-coms....
   [...which isn't saying much.]
   "I think it has taken time for Americans to adopt to online healthcare," he said....
   [If they have yet. And if they ever will. As someone else said, "Just because consumers can buy certain things online doesn't mean they will."]

1. [industry -]
   Dot-com job losses rose steeply, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   Job cuts at Internet companies in August jumped 55% from July...according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Job cuts from Jan. 1 through Wednesday [Aug. 23] totaled 11,785, up from 7,592 posted through July 23. Web-based retailers accounted for the biggest portion of the layoffs with 3,562, an increase of 1,750 over July....
   [See, e.g., Kozmo.com below on 8/19.]

2. [company -]
   Potlatch Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...Spokane, Wash., a producer of paper and lumber, said it would shut a plywood plant in Jaype, Idaho, and dismiss 215 workers because of falling plywood prices.

1. Dana plans to shutter its structural products plant, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of automotive parts [plans] to close its structural products manufacturing plant in Reading, Pa.... A spokesman said 682 of the 1,300 employees at the plant, which made frames for light trucks and heavy vehicles, would be affected by the shutdown..\.. The Dana Corp. [will] continue to operate its engineering, research, program management and information technology operations in Berks County, Pa.
   [Let's see, 682 of 1300 is 52% of the workforce at the plant.]

2. Paper company in Chapter 11 to idle Michigan factory, Bridge News via NYT, C4.
   Crown Vantage Inc., a...manufacturer [of] paper used in printing, publishing and specialty packaging \will\ be idling its plant in Parchment, Mich., and laying off 249 employees starting on Oct. 21.... The plant's [paper] production [will] be absorbed by the company's other active mills. The company had earlier announced that workers at the Parchment plant were planning to strike after their contracts expired.
   [So much for the leverage power of employees in a pre-depression period of technological efficiency accelerating against a rigid pre-technology workweek.]

3. Facing ruin from lawsuits, Anglicans in Canada slash budget, by James Brooke, NYT, A6.
   TORONTO...- With lawsuits by former students of Indian boarding schools threatening to bankrupt the Anglican Church of Canada, this week the church started slashing its national budget by 11%.... To save money for legal bills..\..the Anglican Journal, the church's newspaper here...is to be made smaller and eight staff members here who work for the church's national structure, the General Synod, are to be laid off. From the late 19th century until 1970, boarding schools for Indian children were run by four Christian churches in Canada: RC, Anglican, United and Presbyterian.... In recent years, there have been complaints ranging from accusations that administrators failed to crack down on pedophiles to charges of destruction of cultures, religions and languages. Today, the Anglican Church, which ran 37 schools, the 2nd-largest number after the Catholic Church, is the target of 350 lawsuits, representing 1,600 plaintiffs.... While most dioceses are legally insulated from claims, the national organization and three western dioceses are threatened with bankruptcy. The Anglican Church and the [Roman] Catholic Church, which faces claims by 4,110 plaintiffs, have asked the federal government to help negotiate and pay for a settlement \since\ the churches \had been\ fulfilling a government policy of teaching Canadian Indians English, assimilating them into Canadian society and training them for lives beyond traditional hunting and gathering.... So far, such pleas have been rejected by the government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who was Indian Affairs Minister from 1968 to 1974. [However,] the courts have found that the churches and government share responsibility for abuses at church-run schools..\.. Through the 1960's, about 20% of Canadian Indian children passed through the schools, often in isolated places.... The Anglican Church, Canada's 3rd-largest [after the RC and the United? -ed.] has 2.2m members....
   [And we always figured the Anglicans had a LOT of dough, too. Sociologically, it's the upper-class denomination in Canada. "For nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest." Luke 8:17.]

1. Boeing details big changes set for Washington state, Reuters via NYT, B4.
   [oops - burned again!]
   ...The aerospace giant based in Washington State confirmed yesterday that it planned to close several operations in its home state and reassign or transfer about 3,500 employees [not just 600 as reported yesterday - see 8/18/2000]. The closings [are] more extensive than had been disclosed by union officials....
   [Or rather, than had been previously disclosed by management to union officials.]
   Boeing also plans to move machining and chemical processing work at its military aircraft and missiles shop in Kent, affecting about 500 employees.
   ["Moved" to where?? - let's give them the benefit of the doubt again (dumb?) and assume locally.]
   Tool fabrication work that employs about 2,400 people will be shifted to Wichita, Kan.
   [Well well, look what they slipped-in last. From Washington state to Kansas is not a local move and we're going to count it as a covert firing-hiring, because even the people who do move will be all shook up and in no mood to press for the raises they should all be getting because of the constant infusion of output-boosting technology they're working with and the constant astronomical concentration of corporate profits in the executive suite - which tends to artificially depress its own consumer base and restrain circulation and economic dynamism.]
   ..\..The closings [mentioned previously] could be followed by more local cuts by the end of the year, the company said.
   [This previous statement that we've included now only makes sense now in the light of the long-distance move that implies outright local cuts & remote replacement hires. So we're going to have unspecified layoffs in the next few months.]
   The closings include phasing out a composite and thermoplastic manufacturing unit in Auburn, an operation that employs about 800 people....
   [What a mess. What are we to make of the fate of these 800? Let's be patsies again and assume that these 800 are part of the mentioned "3,500 employees" and that this whole group is really going to be transfered to other facilities locally in Washington state. So how many are effectively going to be cut? Well there's the "shifting" of 2400 jobs from Washington state to Kansas, plus the unspecified "more local cuts by the end of the year."]

2. Kozmo.com...postpones offering, Reuters via NYT, B4.
   ...An Internet retailer that home delivers everything from videos to fast food and CD's has postponed its initial public offering until at least early next year, while there are rumors that it is in talks to acquire its chief rival, Urbanfetch.com.... Kozmo [will] lay off 1% of its staff, about 30-40 [so say 35] employees, from its New York headquarters. The latest layoffs follow a round of job cuts last week, when 275 employees were let go.
   [So 35+275= 310 jobcuts total. If 35 is 1%, total workforce between cuts is 3500 & precuts total is 3500+275= 3775, so overall percentage is 310/3775= 8.2%. Real healthy. Sounds like they should quit acquiring&firing and start "takin' care o' bizz-nezz."]

3. Healtheon/WebMD planning to reduce jobs and costs, Reuters via NYT, B4.
   ...to...push the company toward profitability. The cuts are aimed at eliminating staff overlap stemming from about 10 deals the company has struck in less than a year. The Atlanta-based company [connects] doctors, patients, labs and insurers over the Internet.... The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said the cuts involved about 100 jobs. Healtheon now has about 3,300 employees.
   [So more of the lethal takeover-downsizing connection and here we're talking about a 100/3300= 3% layoff.]

1. Furnishings retailer files for bankruptcy protection, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...The Heilig-Meyers Co. [will] close 302 furniture stores. About 4,400 jobs will be cut. The closings will leave the chain, which is based in Richmond, Va., with 596 stores and about 12,900 employees in 29 states....
   [Let's see, they're cutting 4400/(12900+4400)= 25.4% of their workforce.]

2. Flowserve to cut 1,100 jobs, 10% of work force, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...as a result of its recent acquisition of the Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co [see 2/11/2k #2].... The Dallas-based..\..industrial flow management company...said the reductions were part of the $75m in annual savings it expected to accrue from the merger by Dec/2001.... The majority of the cuts are expected to take place before the end of 2000 and be finished within 15 months.
   [Again, the fatal merger-downsizing connection.]

3. Mead to close plants and eliminate 330 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The biggest U.S. maker of school notebooks [will] close plants in...Kalamazoo...and Indianapolis...by the end of next year's second quarter..\..to cut costs. Some employees at the Indianapolis factory will be eligible to transfer to other sites. Mead said it had an overlap of distribution services because of more centralized distribution centers. The company will take pretax charges totaling...$6m...to cover the cost of dismissing employees and moving equipment to other company plants.

4. Online furniture seller Living.com calls it quits, by Beth Healy, Boston Globe, C11.
   [NYT version is "Living.com to file for bankruptcy," AP via NYT, C9.]
   ...Austin, Tex.-based Living.com posted a notice on its Web site saying it had fired its 275 employees [in Texas & North Carolina] and would file under Chapter 7 of the US bankruptcy code to liquidate the company [because] it was unable to raise more money to stay in business, having already raised $67m in three rounds of venture capital funding.
   [The dot-com cascade continues. At pre-depression levels of workforce weakening and income&wealth concentration, venture capitalists have sooo much capital relative to solid funding candidates that they start to believe in the magic omnipotence of new technology - and that makes them reckless. And there's a domino effect, for example -]
   Amazon.com...took an 18% stake in the company in February, plus another 9%...in the form of warrants, after Living.com agreed to pay $145m over 5 years to be the main furniture seller on Amazon's site....

5. Merrill shutting shopping sites, by Patrick McGeehan, NYT, C9.
   ...Less than a year after leaping headlong into electronic commerce..\..Merrill Lynch...is quietly pulling the plug on 2 World Wide Web sites designed to help its brokerage customers make consumer purchases, Shopmerrill.com and Merrillauctions.com
   [How totally altruistic. But now, unspecified layoffs.]
   Both sites are scheduled to shut down at the end of August. "Basically...we're...refocusing the e-commerce efforts on business-to-business [b2b] instead of business-to-consumer [b2c]," said...a Merrill spokesman. "After experimenting for a while, we [found] there wasn't a huge demand for the shopping sites."
   [Oh what a surprise. The only b2c biz that makes sense on the Web is search-intensive stuff like used books. But maybe that's the only kind of b2b biz that makes sense too (e.g., posting specs & background docs, & inviting bids), though there may be more search-based b2b than b2c. (Hey Mom, I finally conquered algebra!)]

1. ...One of the world's largest makers of heavy trucks, buses and diesel engines,...based in Chicago \will\ lay off 1,100 employees, or about 15% of its white-collar work force. The company...said that after several years of spectacular growth, orders for big trucks in North America had been falling steadily, largely because of higher interest rates, soaring fuel prices and a glut of used trucks.... Over the last year, orders for heavy-duty trucks - which often cost $80,000-100,000 - fell nearly 30%.... The company, which markets its big trucks under the International brand name, has 19,000 employees worldwide.... John R. Horne, the chairman and CEO of [Chicago-based] Navistar, said...that the company is working to become less cyclical. ...Orders for medium-sized trucks are more stable, and sales of Navistar's diesel engines, which are used in UPS, U-Haul and pickup trucks [and by Ford], continue to grow. ...Also...its school bus division was strong....
   [So let's see, 1100 layoffs, presumably in Chicago, gives us 1100/19000= 5.8% of their worldwide workforce.]

2. And earlier this year, Navistar laid off 800 employees in Canada, where its heavy-duty trucks are made, and the company said it may cut 500 more jobs..\..
   [So let's see, 800+500= 1300 Canadian layoffs, giving us 1300/19000= 6.8% of their worldwide workforce.]

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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