Timesizing® Associates

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Downsizings, November 16-30/2000
[Commentary] ©2000 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

11/30/2000  2 downsizings reported, totaling 920 lost US jobs -

1. Norfolk Southern Corporation, NYT, C4.
   ...Norfolk, Va., [will] offer early retirement to some employees as part of a cost-cutting effort. The plan would, for purposes of calculating pensions, add three years to the ages and tenures of workers 53 and older this year who are not covered by collective bargaining or other agreements. About 870 employees are estimated to be eligible.

2. First, the good news, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   Icebox Inc., a creator of Web-based entertainment...licensed its "Zombie College" series to Fox Broadcasting, the first time that a series created for and shown first on the Web was purchased by a major TV network. Icebox, meanwhile, said it was aggressively cutting costs to reach profitability. The Los Angeles Times reported that Icebox was laying off 50 of its 100 employees [50%].
   [The AP version of this story, "Web entertainment site cuts staff," AP-NY-11-28-00 2036EST via AOLNews via RadioTony, has the name of this company as Icebox.com and says, "...An unspecified number of them would continue to work free-lance on animation and Web production. Most of the other production will be outsourced..\.. Steve Stanford, CEO and Icebox.com founder...said the cuts come at a time when the company is "just starting to click on all cylinders...." Well then, they'll probably "throw a spanner in the works." On the other hand, since "Zombie College" is "about a student who turns down admission to MIT to attend a college populated by brain-eating zombies" and "the theme of the show is how people live their lives in the face of horrible things," maybe the layoff casualties are used to this kind of thing.]

1. IXL [Enterprises] sets more layoffs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...An e-commerce consulting firm [will] dismiss 850 employees, or 36% of its workers, and close or sell its offices in Berlin, Hamburg,...Denver, Los Angeles, Madrid, Sao Paulo, ...and Tokyo.... IXL, which cut about 350 jobs in September [unreported then], will have about 1,500 employees after the current cuts.
   [So we have 850+350= a total of 1200 jobs cut from an original workforce of 1200+1500= 2,700 total workforce. So we're talking about 1200/2700= a 44% overall downsizing. Looks like IXL may be in the same kind of death spiral as erstwhile e-consultant MarchFirst - note "Merged consulting concern plans big job cut to bolster stock," by Andrew Sorkin, 11/14/2000 NYT, C6. Notice also today's "MarchFirst to undergo a revamping - The company says it depended too much on dot-coms," by Andrew Sorkin, 11/29 NYT, C7, wherein we learn that MarchFirst's chairman and CEO, Robert Bernard, "also attributed the company's problems to poor integration of the more than two dozen smaller acquisitions it had made." Whoa, we never heard about these 2-doz. babies, but at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, here we have yet more evidence of epidemic "testosterone poisoning" in our executive suites today - executives who would rather do the exciting M&As (mergers and acquisitions) than the banal everyday "managing for long-term value" and staff&skill building (compare the similar sickness among archeologists who would rather be out on exciting "digs" than back home translating and cataloguing the mountains of material they have already brought back, and that is now daily oxidizing into useless dust in the basements of such places as UPenn), and as soon as you're talking M&As, you're talking "the lethal takeover-downsizing connection." So inasfar as MarchFirst may be leading a trend in e-consulting, mayhap we can say they "march first" in "walking the plank."]

2. Wendy's closes Buenos Aires stores and lays off 600, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Wendy's International [will] close the 18 money-losing company-owned stores it has in Buenos Aires, eliminate 600 jobs there and take a pretax charge of $17-22m...in Q4. After the move, Wendy's will have no presence in Argentina, and all its stores outside North America will be franchisee-owned except for four in Guam....

3. Kellogg will lay off 200 to 300 in global revamping, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   The Kellogg Co...expect[s] to cut 200-300 [call it 250] in a revamping linked to its pending acquisition of Keebler Foods Inc. The chairman and chief executive, Carlos Gutierrez, said Kellogg would close a plant in Malaysia and eliminate some positions in Eastern Europe, and make the rest of the planned cuts globally, mainly among administrative workers....
   [Old W.K. Kellogg would turn over in his grave if he saw how today's executives were treating his employees. He's the enlightened business founder, owner and CEO who, with his trusty president, Lewis Brown, instituted a 30-hour workweek at Kellogg Cereals' Battle Creek, Mich. headquarters in December, 1930 (see Ben Hunnicutt's "Kellogg's Six-Hour Day," 1996 via our bibliography page), following the four 6-hour shifts at Lever Bros. in England implemented in the 19-teens by Lord Leverhulme (see his "Six-hour Day and Other Industrial Questions," 1919). But then, come to think of it, W.K. was already squirming in the late 1930s as his employees, unmindful of the surrounding Depression and already taking for granted the "paradise island" of 40 hours' pay for 30 hours' work (achieved by 1935) in which they worked, joined a union and began demanding more on-the-job control. W.K. actually wept. He squirmed even more when his executives immediately inaugurated their long and ultimately (1986) completely successful campaign to totally eradicate the 30-hour week at his company, because they had contextual market forces on their side - the rest of the country had not progressed to the 30-hour week when it had the chance in 1933 and so the labor glut was not absorbed until the War. And of course, with unions often so uncomprehending of their own power levers, the executives found it easy, yes EASY, to enlist the support of many of the union people in rolling back the progress on hours that had been made by that island of enlightenment, Kellogg's of Battle Creek, in the early 30s. Ben Hunnicutt lays out the whole tragic story. Possibly learning from the union-assisted unravelling at Kellogg's, Lincoln Electric in the 1950s took a stronger stand against unionization and replaced the idea of a rigid 30-hour week with flexible workweeks, fluctuating with divisional revenues. It appears from all this hard experience that the old left-right split just doesn't make sense in the framework of the new changes that are being required of 21st-century corporations and economies, and has no relevance. The left, old or "new," have completely failed to grasp the breathtaking centrality of the worktime issue, dissipating the power base that it represents with comparatively trivial grocery lists of issues and demands that they then get so wrapped up in, they lose sight of the worktime issue and wind up "selling their birthright for a mess of pottage." The idea that there might be a "pearl of great price" that subsumes all other issues during our lifetime is something that many socialists, unionists and members of the old and new left, just don't get, any more than many capitalists, managers and members of the right do. There are at least two paradoxes in the path - (1) how can we reduce hours and get more pay? (A: market forces reward scarcity, not commonness) and (2) what about housing and healthcare and childcare and pensions and etc etc etc? (A: seek first Solidarity on Shorter Hours and all these things will be added unto you. It can no more fail than Gandhi's non-violent disobedience. In the comprehensive picture, there is simply no weapon against it. It engages market forces on the side of labor, and that is what management, being a smaller group, has ever previously been better at. It effectively usurps or co-opts management's power base, market forces. And market forces so far outflank and outgun and outflex and outcreate anything government, however big, can do in terms of sharpshooting benefits, there's simply no contest. It's just that, being so pervasive and everyday and commonplace, they're sooo easy to overlook. All the great labor-shortage-driven economic booms of history, from before the Great Plague to this day, performed their wealth-centrifuging magic against the kicking and screaming of the wealthy expressed in all kinds of "anti-inflationary" measures of government, which were no more than feathers in the wind. Wages and benefits rose, the money got into the hands of the people who actually needed it and spent it, and the rising prices became yet another mechanism of the centrifugation of wealth - with inconceivable benefits in terms of economic dynamism, and we're not talking just hollow stock boom as today and the 1920s, because this boom was supported, driven and led by widespread consumer spending and demand. The only thing widespread about consumer demand today is the cancerous spread of the prison-industrial complex.)]

4. Nova Chemicals Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...Calgary, Alta., the largest Canadian petrochemical company [will] close its polystyrene plant in Joliet, Ill., dismiss 54 employees and take an after-tax charge of about $68m. The plant, acquired from the Huntsman Chemical Corp. in December 1998, will be closed in the first quarter of 2001.

1. [The dot-com industry in Nov:]
   Dot-com job cuts deepen, Challenger Gray & Christmas via NYT, C4.
   Job cuts at Internet companies surged to 8,789 in November [taking months ending in the third week], a 55% increase over October. Since January, over 30,000 jobs have been eliminated.
   [Compare the parallel Globe article, "After jump to dot-com, a leap back - Dot-com workers come full circle," by Craig Tomashoff, 11/30 Boston Globe, A1,C7.]

2. Sovereign [Bancorp] set to dismiss 500 bank managers, AP via NYT, C8.
   ...The third-largest bank, based in Pennsylvania..\..will lay off...6% of its workforce as it completes a restructuring after buying 278 former FleetBoston Financial branches in New England. Sovereign will also take about $15m in charges against earnings, mostly in Q4, to cover severance costs.... Most of the layoffs will take place this week and will involve managers and back-office workers rather than branch staff. Some of the layoffs will be workers the bank hired to help complete the acquisition of the branches....

3. Covad Communications [Group] to lay off staff and cut costs, Dow Jones via NYT, C4.
   ...[A provider of] Internet connections over digital subscriber lines \will\ lay off one-eighth of its staff and find other economies to reduce its costs by 20-30% next year. The company [will] curtail expansion of its network in 2001 to just over 2,000 telephone central offices and...cancel construction of a third operations center in Alpharetta, Ga....
   [And the number of layoffs, specifically??? Web search reveals "cut about 400 jobs, or 13% of its work force" in "ISP Covad cuts work force," AP-NY-11-27-00 1915EST via AOLNews.]

4. Bassett to cut 280 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C8.
   Bassett Furniture Industries...will eliminate...6.7% of its workforce to cut costs as it reorganizes. The company warned it will fall short of profit estimates.... Most of the job cuts will come at its plants in Bassett, Va.

5. New leader and layoffs at ReplayTV, by John Markoff, NYT, C4.
   ...A pioneering maker of digital video recorders said [yester]day that its leader of one year [Kim LeMaster] had resigned, that it would lay off up to [130 employees, 50% or] half of its workforce of 260 and that it would reshape its business strategy. Along with TiVo Inc., a competing Silicon Valley start-up, Replay has been trying to build a market for computer-based systems that replace traditional videotape recorders and allow television viewers to freeze programs and rewind, and to create custom "channels."... Analysts said that despite offering free electronic service, in contrast to TiVo's subscription service, ReplayTV had trailed in the consumer market....
   [Are people tiring of gadgets? On and on we go, straining ever harder to come up ever daintier refinements to justify a pre-technology workweek that hasn't decreased in two generations, despite infinitely more worksaving technology than in 1940 when the national 40-hour workweek was established in the USA. With each new refinement, we're supposed to throw away all last year's technology and buy this year's, merely to keep an ever more anxious workforce in food and lodging & an ever more insulated cadre of top executives in unspendably skyrocketing wealth. Sooner or later, environmental constraints will end this moronic waste, and let's hope it's not catastrophic. The intelligent alternative is to share the vanishing work, and let the workweek resume its 164-year shrinkage from eighty hrs/wk in 1776 to forty hrs/wk in 1940. "What will people do with all that extra time?" Well, "that's why God created leisure industries," and maybe if people had more time for their families (remember families?) we'd have less domestic violence and fewer highschool shootings....]

6. Unable to deliver, E-Stamp regroups, AP via Boston Globe, D2.
   ...The Mountain View, Calif. company..\..is getting out of the online postage business, abandoning a concept it pioneered. [It] will lay off 36 employees...about 30% of its workforce - as part of a reorganization that will focus its efforts on helping other businesses order supplies over the Internet. The reductions come on the heels of a 25% cutback in July. ...Last month, [rival] Stamps.com laid off 240 workers [see 10/24/2000]....
   [So if 30% of its workforce is 36, its pre-cut workforce is 120, and if that's 75% of their pre-cut workforce in July, they started with 160, and cut a total of 40+36= 76 employees, or 48% since July.]
   Yesterday, E-Stamp CEO Robert Ewald said, "Our biggest competition was the status quo. The idea of buying postage online isn't at the forefront of anyone's mind." E-Stamp spent $47m on marketing to get $5m in revenue during the first nine months.... E-Stamp acquired Infinity Logistics and Automated Logistics Corp. for $9.8m to launch its entrance into supply chain management.

7. InsWeb to buy a Quicken unit, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Intuit's QuickenInsurance business to gain new customers.... Despite its well-known personal-finance brand name, Intuit [don't let your subconscious substitute Intel] has struggled to profit from Web-based services for consumers. Some 75 jobs will be cut as a result of the deal....

8. CUseeMe to cut 22% of staff, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of communications software for the Internet [will] eliminate 36 positions, or 22% of its workforce. The job cuts and reorganization are expected to save about $2.5m annually. CUseeMe [plans] to take a charge of less than $500,000 in fiscal Q4 primarily for severance payments and lease-termination payments.

• Bezeq reports 3rd-quarter loss after expenses of cutting jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C10.
  ...Israel's state-run telephone company...had a third-quarter loss after taking an unexpected...$340m charge to shed employees.... The telephone company has been trimming its workforce over the last three years in an effort to better compete with new rivals in international, cellular and domestic calling services. Bezeq labor leaders agreed in September to a...$390m severance pay package for 2,000 workers.... Shani Kogan, an analyst at Nessuah Zannex Securities...pointed to a drop in labor, building and subcontracting expenses.... "I'm happy to see that Bezeq is actively reducing its overhead."
  [By downsizing instead of timesizing, It's also actively reducing its own markets.]
  Bezeq makes most of its profits from domestic calling, its last remaining monopoly....

1. Solopoint.com Inc., NYT, B3.
   ...Los Gatos, Calif., a provider of Internet access and online marketing, said it had fired 11 [85%] of its 13 workers and would begin to wind down operations, after failing to raise capital or sell the company.

2. Japan's banks pressed by troubled corporate clients, by Stephanie Strom, NYT, B3.
   ... Mitsui Construction plans to eliminate jobs in an effort to reorganize..\.. A general contractor, Mitsui [will] probably ask its banks to forgive almost $1B in loans.... The lenders...are likely to [comply]. The construction industry is politically favored in Japan, and the banks have already forgiven the debts of seven other construction companies since this summer....

1. Framfab to cut one in six jobs [17%], Bloomberg via NYT, C9.
   STOCKHOLM - ...A Swedish Internet consultant [will] dismiss 340 people, close offices and dismantle its venture capital and advertising units..\..to try to return to profitability in the second quarter. The company will...focus on advising clients like Ikea...on how best to integrate electronic commerce into their businesses. "This signals that things are worse than expected," said Anders Brenner, an analyst at Redeye, an independent Swedish equity research firm.
   [Well at least some analysts these days are smart enough to regard layoffs as bad news rather than good.]
   The cuts come two weeks after Johann Wall replaced the company's 29-year-old founder, Jonas Birgersson, as chief executive.

2. Walker Digital cuts staff, by Catherine Greenman, NYT, C3.
   ...The technology incubator that created the Priceline.com "name your price" concept for buying airline tickets and other items online, has laid off 100 [80%] of the 125 employees at its Stamford, Conn., headquarters after failing to raise capital.... The company's remaining employees will focus on licensing Walker Digital's existing intellectual properties and the commercialization of several businesses currently in development, including Retail DNA, a dynamic pricing company in New York.
   Three early-stage companies started by Walker Digital - High Circle in Los Angeles, Atlantis in Atlanta and Pulse 123 in San Francisco - have been closed. Earlier this month, Priceline cut 87 jobs, or about 16% of its workforce [and] WebHouse Club, an Internet gasoline and grocery bidding service that licensed the Priceline concept, said it would down operations by the end of the year.

3. Grocery chain seeks bankruptcy protection, Bloomberg via NYT, C9.
   Big V Supermarkets, which operates 39 ShopRite supermarkets in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania [has] filed for bankruptcy-court protection and [will] close 7 stores in New York and Pennsylvania in the next 3 months.... Employees at the closed stores will be offered jobs at the surviving stores, but Big V...also expected some jobs would be eliminated, although it did not know how many....

• Hit or Miss filed bankruptcy papers, by Chris Reidy, Boston Globe, C8.
  Apparel retailer...of Stoughton [Mass.] filed for bankruptcy protection in New Jersey last week as it seeks to reorganize around a new business plan....
  While in Chapter 11, Hit or Miss plans to close at least 28 "nonperforming stores" out of a store base of 199.... Hit or Miss is owned by Kombassan Holding A.S., a Turkish conglomerate.
  [Great, Turkey downsizes US on Turkey Eve - so who's the real turkey here?]

1. ING Groep planning major layoffs in London, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ING Groep's decision to abandon its plan to build a global investment bank may result in layoffs of as many as 1,000 people in London, executive recruiters and analysts said. ING, based in Amsterdam, has already announced that it expects to sell or close its American investment banking unit, affecting another 1,800 jobs. As part of the reorganization, the company will fold ING Barings in Europe into its other banking businesses, a move that analysts say would eliminate more than half the company's 1,700 London-based jobs.
   [So let's see, we've got 1000 likelies in London, 1800 shutdown-or-soldouts in America, and another 1700/2+1= 851 eliminations in London for a total of 3651 vanishing jobs.]
   ING bought Barings for £1 in 1995, Furman Selz in 1997 for $600m and Charterhouse Securities four months ago for $190m.
   [So again, the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]

2. Staff cuts expected at BBDO Worldwide, by Bernard Stamler, NYT, C12.
   The BBDO Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group in New York [will] soon make an unspecified number of staff reductions among employees in North America to help achieve the cost savings the agency had promised when it was awarded the consolidated account of the Chrysler Group unit of DaimlerChrysler AG....
   [How bizarre. Promising to demoralize your advertising 'team' with unspecified jobcuts in order to get a big account? No wonder DaimlerChrysler itself is in trouble!]
   "It is not by any means a deep cut," said Allen Rosenshine, chairman and CEO of BBDO, adding that he wanted to disclose the cuts now because "it's more demoralizing" if they leaked out.
   [Don't be so sure, "Rosenshine." Now they have more time to feel insecure wondering "Will it be me?" and if they're smart and have any self-respect, to send out their resumes and abandon your pathetic employee-dissing ship.]
   About 1,000 BBDO employees now work on various Chrysler Group assignments, our of a total of about 5,000 BBDO North American employees. Most but not all of the layoffs, Mr. Rosenshine said, were likely to occur among employees whose duties are being transferred from local BBDO offices to PentaMark Worldwide in Troy, Mich., a unit BBDO is forming to be focused on the Chrysler Group creative and media accounts.
   [How stupid would you feel if you moved from New York City to Troy, Michigan and then these clowns laid you off?! Our advice: Bail out, everyone!]
   Some cuts could also come through attrition.
   [This is what they should have led with if they wanted any morale left. No wonder we're getting so many weird dark ads like the sneakers ad with the guy with the ax/chainsaw chasing the female Olympic runner = covert employee sabotage. Oh, here we go -]
   Acting on a Chrysler Group request, Pentamark Worldwide will recruit some employees from FCB Worldwide in Southfield, Mich...that shared teh Chrysler Group assignment with BBDO until the company decided on Nov. 3 to consolidate the account....
   [Talk about micromanagement. Chrysler seems to be regaining some of its old pre-Iacocca deathwish.]

3. Time Warner joint venture in Japan to close, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Waek consumer spending in Japan will force the dissolution of the joint venture that operates Time Warner's licensed-character retail stores there. The five stores, stocked with Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil plush toys and other goods, will remain open until summer and then be liquidated, according to Daiei, Time Warner's Japanese partner, which owns 2/3 of the venture....
   [Poor Bugs, forced into the company of the likes of T-Devil instead of his old pals Porky Pig & Elmer Fudd, but why would the Japanese relate to this American silliness anyway? They've got Godzilla and Mothra and a host of modern cartoon girls with big eyes and tight clothes!]
   Daiei also said it would liquidate a casual clothing company and a real estate leasing company it controls...as part of a plan to reduce debt.
   [So, unspecified job losses.]

4. India: Workers rampage, Agence France-Presse via NYT, A8.
   [Again, unspecified job losses.]
   Tens of thousands of workers facing job losses rampaged across New Delhi to protest a court order closing polluting factories, witnesses and police said.
   [Here we have a prime example of the negative connection between job losses and the environment, or alternatively, the positive connection between a "share the vanishing work" program like Timesizing and the environment. Let's go on to consider the connection with violence and national security -]
   Scores of people were wounded, many with gunshot wounds, as the protesters randomly attacked shopping malls, government buildings and private vehicles, they said.  26 police officers were hospitalized and at least five rioters were shot and seriously wounded.
   [Hey, if you've got no way to make a living, what have you got to lose?!]

1. Cutbacks at Mazda, AP via NYT, B2.
   The Mazda Motor Corp. [will] reduce capacity in Japan by as much as one-quarter, shift some production to Europe, and eliminate 1,800 jobs, or 9% of its workforce, through early retirement. Mazda's president, Mark Fields...said the moves would help the company return to profitability by the end of the next year....

2. [Again the lethal takeover-downsizing connection, coming and going.]
   Citigroup Polish unit to cut 22% of workforce, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   Bank Handlowy SA, Poland's largest commercial lender, which is mainly owned by Citigroup, will cut its workforce by 22% by the end of 2001 to cut costs as it merges with another Citigroup unit, Citibank (Poland) SA. Handlowy said earlier the total costs connected with the merger would amount to...$43.8m [without disclosing] separate spending figures for employment cuts alone. Citigroup bought 68% of Handlowy in February.
   [Well, a 22% cut is fine and dandy but how many jobcuts is that? A rather basic factoid, wouldn't you say? Yet the NYT has edited it out of this Bloomberg story. Wake up, boys&girls! Sooo, we have to go fish for it on AOLNews -]
   Citigroup's Handlowy to fire 1,400 workers by end of 2001, Bloomberg Nov/17/2000 7:49 ET.
   ...Poland's top corporate lender forecasts a 12% reduction in costs after 1,400 jobs are cut from the current 6,400 staff, with 400 workers to be laid off before the end of this year....

3. Another round of layoffs at U.S. Firestone factories - Huge tire inventory builds as sales slow, by Keith Bradsher, NYT, B2.
   DETROIT - ...Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. announced its second round of job cuts in a month [yester]day, saying that nearly 1,100 factory workers would be laid off for at least 5 months. The layoffs were the latest sign that sales of Firestone tires have not recovered from the recall on Aug. 9 of 14.4m Firestone ATX and Wilderness tires that were mounted mainly of Ford Explorer SUVs.... The company accumulated a huge supply of unsold tires last summer in preparation for a labor strike that never happened. And the tire industry's overall sales are weakening as auto production begins to slow and as a cooling economy dampens demand for replacement tires. In response, Firestone has now laid off one-seventh of its 11,000 manufacturing workers and furloughed even more.
   [So this 1100 is 10% of the original 11,000 employees.]
   Firestone [will] reduce production on Jan.21 at its factory in Oklahoma City, laying off 700 people, and at its factory in LaVergne, Tenn., laying off nearly 400 people. "It is our hope and expectation to be able to bring back these employees during the 2nd half of next year as we anticipate an increase in sales and we deplete our inventories," said John T. Lampe, Firestone's CEO.
   Firestone will also stop production for 2 weeks, beginning on Jan.14, at its factory in McMinnville, Tenn., and will furlough nearly 900 workers there. Laid-off and furloughed workers are eligible for unemployment benefits, with the company supplementing payments from state unemployment agencies so that workers continue to draw 80% of their pay excluding overtime. [Yester]day's actions are in addition to the company's announcement on Oct. 17 that it would lay off indefinitely 450 workers at the factory in Decatur, Ill., and would close for 4 weeks this autumn the LaVergne and Oklahoma City factories, furloughing those workers....
   [So this "furloughing" is beyond the week-on week-off timesizing that the auto companies use. It's more like month-on month-off. And Firestone - this great "free-market, capitalist" company - is imposing upon the government's unemployment insurance program to support ":furloughed" (1-month range of gap in employment) and "laid-off" (5-month range and longer). So here is another area where if Firestone was using hours-per-day and per-week based timesizing for all employees (including top execs) instead of furloughs&rehires and layoffs&rehires for only a percentage of employees (excluding top execs, who therefore underestimate the damage to consumer markets due to reduced employee spending, we could cut government and taxes and have a more cushioned economy.]

4. ZipLink will close, ending jobs of 80 workers, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   ...A provider of wholesale Internet access [is] shutting down operations immediately and might sell its assets to pay creditors. About 80 of the company's 90 workers have been let go....
   [Let's see, 80/90= 88.88'%.]

1. 130 dot-coms close this year, eliminating 8,000 jobs, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, D2.
   Dot-com companies are [now] closing at a rate of more than one a day, eliminating 8,000 jobs since January, as the collapse in Internet stocks chokes off the flow of capital keeping start-ups afloat, according to a new report. As many as 130 dot-coms have closed since January, according to San Francisco-based Webmergers.com, which tracks Internet mergers and acquisitions.
   And the pace is accelerating. Through the first half of November, 21 Internet companies closed, almost as many as during all of October, when a record 22 were shuttered...victims of investors' reluctance to pump more money into businesses with little prospect of turning a profit any time soon.

2. [Again, the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]
   Clear Channel to cut 400 jobs, AP-NY-11-15-00 1852EST via AOLNews via RadioTony.
   ...The largest U.S. radio station owner is laying off 400 employees of AMFM Inc., which it acquired in August. The layoffs, detailed in documents the San Antonio-based company filed Tuesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, are part of a plan to close the AMFM corporate offices by March 15.
   [Oho, the ol' "buy up the rivals and shut'em down" game. Such a dandy example of robust free-market competition. Isn't this what General Motors did to steam-engine parts plants so they could sell their diesel buses and trucks, and to the electric trolleys in the L.A. public transportation system so they could sell more cars and turn L.A. into a giant traffic jam?]
   Many of the layoffs have already occurred and the rest are expected by the end of June.... Positions eliminated include senior management and support personnel at AMFM's headquarters in Dallas - including AMFM CFO D. Geoffrey Armstrong - and at its Austin-based subsidiary, Capstar.... A large number of accounting positions in Austin also were cut. "Other operations of AMFM either will be discontinued or integrated into existing similar operations...," the company said.
   Since its $23B acquisition of AMFM was completed...
   [These morons paid $23B to destroy something?!]
   ...Clear Channel owns, operates or holds an equity stake in about 1,140 radio stations.
   [And where are our American antitrust regulators when we really need them - to stop the concentration of our "two-guy" media to the "one-guy" level?!]
   The company is spending about $185m to incorporate AMFM's operations into its own - mostly for severance pay.... The company maintained almost all operations employees at the radio stations formerly owned by AMFM and Jacor Communications, which Clear Channel purchased last year. It also kept most workers at SFX Entertainment, a music and sports-event promotions company that Clear Channel bought this year.
   ...The company's stock has remained stuck far below its 52-week high...reached in January.

3. Shares fallen, TheStreet.com will lay off 20% of staff, by David Kirkpatrick, NYT, C10.
   ...An online financial news service whose one-soaring stock helped to symbolize the Internet craze, said yesterday that...it would lay off 40 of 219 employees, saving $3.1m a year..\..in a broad-ranging effort to conserve remaining cash as it strives to make its first profit.... It also announced that it and The New York Times Co. had agreed to close by the end of the month a joint newsroom with a total of 7 reporters and editors operated with The Times's Web site.
   ["7 people operated with a Web site"? What are they, robots?]
   ..\..In addition, the company said it would close a majority-owned British unit, with 64 employees....
   [So our total here is 40+7+64= 111 US & British jobs lost, i.e., 111 consumer-base units whacked.]
   Thomas J. Clarke, CEO of TheStreet.com, said [all] the moves would save $18m a year...adding that the company expects to turn a profit by the end of next year.... Mr. Clarke said that unlike many other Internet start-ups, TheStreet.com still had [a lot of money on hand -] $90m in cash at the end of Q3, and might try to improve its profitability by acquiring other Internet businesses....
   [Boy, that would be stupid. They can't even get one into profit and they want to take over others? This moron is bashing his employee morale to get into the takeover game? How insecure must this turkey be in his own masculinity - he's got testosterone poisoning. "Never mind managing - just do takeovers!"]
   "I don't think it is a bright future," said Robert Hertzberg, an analyst at Jupiter Communications.
   1. For one thing, the precipitous decline in Internet stocks since April had turned away some of the financial news addicts that made up the core audience of TheStreet.com.
   2. "The heap of cash is dwindling by the quarter," Mr. Hertzberg said, adding that
   3. the layoffs would hurt morale and
   4. the company faced stiff competition from services like CBS Marketwatch.com and even The Wall Street Journal's online edition.
   [Four strikes & you're really out.]
   TheStreet.com was founded 4 years ago by a partnership including the flamboyant fund manager James J. Cramer.... Yesterday, Mr. Cramer said..."I think the company is doing the right thing...but I feel badly for the people who will be laid off...."
   [Evidently not badly enough to cut hours a little for everyone, including himself, rather than cut jobs completely for a few (and then a few more, and a few more...).]

4. 130 dot-coms close this year, eliminating 8,000 jobs, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, D2.
   ...Chapters Online Inc., a Canadian Internet retailer, said it cut 73 jobs, or 18% of its staff....

5. Virtual Communities announces layoffs, Reuters 20:36 11-16-00 via AOLNews via RadioTony.
   Software developer...Thursday announced layoffs of about 40 workers, or half its staff, after failure to secure new financing forced it to "significantly" curtail operations. The company said the jobs that were cut included nearly all of the company's employees in its New York City office and others employed at its software development unit in Jerusalem.... Several employees of the unit have agreed to continue working temporarily, possibly without pay, including some members of the editorial staff who will maintain the company's online communities.
   [Oh great, employees are giving employers a blank check on their lives for a 40-hour salary already, and these chumps aren't even going to get the 40-hours' worth.] ...Virtual Communities...may close operations altogether if immediate financing cannot be obtained or cash raised through the sale of..\..one or more of its online communities or its Cortra Site Studio software....

6. 130 dot-coms close this year, eliminating 8,000 jobs, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, D2.
   ...Audiohighway.com, which lets users download audio content, said it fired 21 of 30 employees....

1. Garden.com joins ranks of Web failures - Company to fire staff, sell assets, Bloomberg via Boston Globe, C4.
   AUSTIN - ...The gardening-supplies merchant..\..is going out of business...after running out of money. [It] will fire an undisclosed number of workers and sell off its inventory, site content, and photo library, the company said in a statement distributed by PR Newswire.... Garden.com...has Web sites where gardeners can exchange tips and buy products such as flowers and tools..\..
   [So, unspecified layoffs, but specified later in "E-commerce report - As online companies crash and burn, some find a way to make a graceful exit, by Bob Tedeschi, 11/27/00 NYT, C11, "...With the board's support..\..Cliff Sharples, chief executive of Garden.com determined...how much it would cost to provide severance pay to the company's 151 employees, and how best to reimburse suppliers and investors.... When the time finally came to close the retail operation, the company announced a four-stage layoff of employees, which is to continue through Dec. 31. Two dozen employees will remain to explore "strategic options" for the company's so-called supply chain software system, which is marketed under the Trellis brand...." So 151-2 doz.= 127 jobcuts in the four-stage layoff.]
   

2. CondeNet to close 2 sites, by Saul Hansell, NYT, C4.
   ...CondeNet, the online unit of Advance Publications has decided to close two of its smaller sites: Swoon.com, which dealt with sex and relationships, and Phys.com, on women's health.... Swoon and Phys were said to be less lucrative, with fewer opportunities to sell products related to their content.
   [So, unspecified layoffs.]

3. Dow Jones drops Wall Street Journal's regional editions, by Mary Walsh, NYT, C10.
   Dow Jones & Co. abruptly ended a 7-year experiment in regional business journalism yesterday, announcing it would immediately halt publication of six special [4-page] weekly editions of The Wall Street Journal. ...Paul Steiger, managing editor of The...Journal, notified regional staffers yesterday that their jobs would end on Dec. 31.
   [More unspecified layoffs. Hap-py New Year!]
   In a memo, he told the affected workers that they could write news for the main edition until that date,...
   [Oh gee, what a privilege! - and they can also blastfax their resumes, which we strongly advise them to do.]
   ...and that they were also invited to apply for openings at The Journal, its international editions and the Dow Jones electronic publications. The company's union contract does not promise to relocate the displaced workers to new jobs, but Mr. Steiger made an oral commitment to do so in a staff conference call yesterday.

4. Shake-up at Commerzbank, Reuters via NYT, W1.
   Germany's 4th-largest bank...under pressure to justify its go-it-alone strategy after the collapse of a major planned merger, said it would close 200 branches to cut costs, thoroughly review its operations, consider selling some assets like real estate and leasing units, and change chief executives....
   [You can bet the pressure is coming from minimally involved analysts and speculators who profit from stock movement, regardless of long-term solidity. So, even more unspecified layoffs. A "Chinese firedrill" when they're doin' fine? -]
   Commerzbank,based in Frankfurt, also reported that earnings in Q3 doubled to...$295m, driven largely by the partial spinoff of its online business, Comdirect.

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