Timesizing® Associates - HOMEPAGE

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Downsizings, April 16-30/2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

4/30/2001  1 weekend downsizing cited in NY Times (NYT) & Boston Globe (BG), totaling 55 lost Ma. jobs + unspecified -

• More cuts at Burnett in [b2b] technology agency, by Courtney Kane, NYT, C14.
  ...The Boston office...is being closed and remaining operations consolidated at the Burnett USA office in Chicago, effective on Friday.... Of the 12 employees in Boston, down from a high of 55 late last year, 4 are being offered transfers to Chicago and 8 will be offered severance packages.
  [We'll count all 55 because this is the first we've heard of cuts at the Boston office.]

1. Unilever to cut 8,000 jobs and shut 30 plants, by Suzanne Kapner, NYT, B3.
   ...as it digests the acquisition of its U.S. rival, Bestfoods [and] borrowing costs related to acquisitions ate into profits..\.. The British-Dutch consumer products giant...which makes Dove soap and Lipton tea, said Q1 net income fell by 61%.... In February [last year!!! - small detail - see 2/23/2000 #1], Unilever said it would cut 25,000 jobs [10%] over five years, part of a restructuring program to weed out three-quarters of its brands and leave it with the top-selling 400 lines.
   [We're going to take a guess and assume that these 8000 jobcuts are additional since Unilever only bought Bestfoods in June, 2000 - see 6/07/2000 #1. If additional, we can assume that Bestfoods added at least those 8000 jobs onto the 250,000 workforce total, making the 8000 = 8k/(250k+8k)= 3% of the low-end total. We have confirmation in the BG version of the story, "Etc. - Unilever," BG, E1, where we read, "The cuts are on top of the 25,000 staff reductions...announced in 2000" - and the Globe got the year right! But we thought Unilever sold Bestfoods (to Weston's) this Feb. - see 2/20/2001. Maybe that's the problem. It's not your usual lethal takeover-downsizing connection. They bought it for $20B and only sold it for $2B. What a bunch of geniuses, eh? And now they're running a consumer products company and clobbering the consumer base with huge layoffs and further concentration of income. Brilliant. With CEOs like this running around loose, we'll be lucky to have any economy at all in five years.]
   [Followup -]
   Britain: Unilever's profit rises, by Alan Cowell, 2/14/2003 NYT, W1.
   The largest manufacturer of foods and soaps...whose products include Dove soap, Ragu sauce and Hellmann's mayonaise, said its net profit increased 13% as it pursued a 4-year plan to focus on its 400 top brands and cut more than 30,000 jobs....
   [So the 25,000 cuts did officially creep up to 30,000 though we've counted 25000+8000= 33,000.]
   Unilever said it maintained its long-term target of about 10% annual growth.
   [Downsizing by cutting jobs is not growth, it's suicide - because you're cutting your own customers and your customers' customers - in short, your own markets. And companies in profit that do this are the root and source of recession. There is no way the global economy is going to recover with CEOs following this practice. The irony here is that the founder of Unilever, Lord Leverhulme, would roll over in his grave if he saw what his self-mutilating successors were doing, because way back in 1918 he understood the problem of "With all our work-saving technology, how can we eliminate work without eliminating employees & all the markets they create?" and his answer was a primitive form of timesizing in his book, "The Six-hour Day and Other Industrial Questions" (Allen & Unwin: London, 1919). It was the book that Lewis Brown, president of Kellogg Cereals in 1930, carried around with him everywhere as he and W.K. Kellogg instituted the first widely known corporate 30-hour workweek in America - in Dec. 1930, thereby providing the working model for the Black 30-hour workweek bill that passed the U.S. Senate in April, 1933, with Arthur Dahlberg ("Jobs, Machines and Capitalism" 1932) as its academic backup, William Green of the AFL as its labor promoter, and William Connery as its chief proponent in the House. Unfortunately, FDR didn't "get" it (part jealousy) and proceeded to use it as a goad to do anything and everything ELSE as his OWN program. This hodgepodge of fast idea grabs gradually materialized into the New Deal, none of which worked to solve even half the Depression (at its best the New Deal only brought unemployment down from 25% to 14%) until - you guessed it - the War. Bottom line - we strained for makework - ever too little too late except when driven by military threat - instead of simple and easy sharework or worksharing. The worksharing of the 30-hour workweek would have solved the Depression in a year despite its primitive design (rigid arbitrary new level of 30 instead of automatic fluctuation against comprehensive unemployment and no automatic overtime-to-training&hiring conversion). With militarized makework, Hitler in Germany and the successor of the Meiji government in Japan solved their nations' depression (and humiliation) in 3 years, long before the USA solved its Depression in 1942 after Pearl Harbor. Whereupon, through the 'kindness' of Japan and Germany (and the scheming of Churchill and FDR), military makework was foist upon the American upper income brackets and they began to release their stranglehold on all their unspendable spending power at rates and volumes that got the economy going again and drove the unemployment rate all the way down below 1%. (2% in those days was seen as alarmingly high.)]

2. Comair unit of Delta sets layoffs during strike, Bloomberg via NYT, B3.
   The Delta Air Lilnes commuter carrier [based in Cincinnati, will] lay off about 2,000 employees because of a strike by its pilots that began March 26. The layoffs affect about half of Comair's non-striking employees, in all departments.... A federal agency reconvened talks between Comair and the union for its 1,400 pilots on Wed. for the first time since the walkout began.

3. Thermo [Electron] unit to cut jobs, Bloomberg via BG, E1.
   ...The largest maker of laboratory instruments, [based in Waltham, Mass.], is laying off about 240 employees...from its Spectra-Physics telecommunications unit throughout the quarter..\..because of reduced demand.... The workers will be rehired once sales increase, although the company doesn't know when that will be....
   [And the employees are supposed to sit around and wait for this indefinite rehiring? Only the stupidest. You want employees around for some hoped-for recovery? You practice timesizing, not downsizing. In other words, you cut hours&pay 10% for all your workforce instead of completely for 10% of your workforce. In short, like Lincoln Electric, you "all sacrifice together, starting at the top."]

4. Counseling the counselors - Ceridian moving Brookline call center to lower-cost Pa., by Diane Lewis, BG, E1.
   After advising frazzled employees day after day, telephone counselors at Ceridian Corp.'s work-life program received some advice themselves this month as the company prepared to shift their jobs to a lower-cost city. The company's 180 Massachusetts advisers received counseling about the move this week from the state's rapid response team, which helps workers assess job and training opportunities after a downsizing, restructuring, or plant shutdown....
   [The state's rapid response team??? Does this mean Massachusetts taxpayers are getting slammed twice by each layoff - once because their consumer base gets bashed, taking down their tax revenues, and once again because without being asked, we're paying for an exciting Rapid Response Team to fly around the state and try to pick up some pieces? We shake our heads, we roll our eyes, we count to ten.]
   The counselors were offered transfers to Ceridian's call center in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., but only a handful expressed interest.
   [What kind of moving subsidies were they offered, if any?]
   Yesterday was their last day on the job in the company's Brookline call center.
   Ceridian's decision to move work to Pa. comes 3 years after the Minnesota corporation, one of the biggest tax and payroll processing firms, bought the call center from Boston-based Work/Family Directions in order to broaden its presence in the small but growing work-life services market.
   [Oh so this whole operation was supposed to be not only employee-friendly but family-friendly? Ri-i-ight. And it went the way of the lethal takeover-downsizing slide?!]
   At the time, Fran Rodgers, WFD's founder, had earned a national reputation as a staunch supporter of employees seeking balance at home and work. ...Rodgers and her husband, Charles, sold to Ceridian in 1998 for an undisclosed amount..\..
   [So much for their commitment to the cause. Just a couple of sell-outs, at bottom, only interested in their own hides. Cancel one reputation.]
   When [they] sold...the 24-hour call center they had created was dispensing advice to more than 3 million US employees and had $65m in revenue. Today, the publicly traded company is one of two top work-life service providers in the country....
   [Well this gives new meaning to "advice is cheap." All we can say is, "physicians, heal yourselves!"]

5. Knight-Ridder is planning to eliminate newspaper jobs, AP via NYT, B3.
   ...at most of its 32 newspapers in the face of plunging advertising revenue and rising newsprint prices. ...The nation's second-largest newspaper company, after Gannett...
   [And who owns both of them, we wonder....]
   based in San Jose, Calif...employs about 22,000 workers. The CEO, Tony Ridder [all in the family?] said yesterday that the number of jobs lost would vary by paper, based on local market conditions. Knight Ridder will offer early retirement packages in an effort to avoid layoffs.
   [Well, that's sweet of them, but trimming hours, not jobs, would be smarter - and would not put a dent in their own best-customer base.]

6. Etc. - Art Technology Group Inc., Globe wire services, BG, E1.
   ...shares rose...after the Internet-software maker said it's firing staff and reorganizing, following a wider first-quarter loss....
   [Guess there's still some dumb "investors" around.]

1. Germany: Layoffs at Siemens, AP via NYT, W1.
   ...The big electronics maker plans 3,500 more job cuts and has scrapped earlier forecasts for robust growth this year as its latest quarterly financial results fell short of expectations because of a significant decline in its telecommunications division. The CEO, Heinrich von Pierer, said the new job cuts would be in Germany and the U.S. in the next 18 months, mostly in the Siemens sales unit. About 2,100 American workers are to be laid off.

2. Sara Lee plans to lay off up to 1,400 more employees, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...at its underwear manufacturing plants in Central America and South America amid the continuing economic and retail slowdown.... Sara Lee makes Hanes underwear and Playtex bras in addition to sausages, baked goods and household products. The job cuts are less than 1% of the company's work force and are in addition to the 7,000 announced in Jan. as part of its continuing restructuring.... Sara Lee employs about 150,000 people in 40 countries.
   [Such a big responsibility for such small brains.]

3. Corning says it plans to cut 1,000 additional jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The fiber optics maker [will] eliminate [2.5% of its workforce] on top of 3,300 already planned in recent weeks as it scrambles to rebound from a slump in telecommunications markets. Overall, the cuts account for about 10% of Corning's payroll of 40,000. The new cuts were announced yesterday as Corning reported a first-quarter net profit of $132m...up 71% from $77m...in last year's quarter. Sales rose 42% to $1.92B from $1.35B....
   [Here is a company that really deserves a death spiral, because it's downsizing employment and consumer spending while its profits are rising. This is the kind of destructive behavior that one nation, France, is having the horse sense to make much more difficult. See our 4/24/2001 article "France to raise profitable firms' severance costs."]

4. Online grocer offers survival plan, by Andrew Zipern, NYT, C4.
   Webvan Group [will] eliminate 885 jobs, cutting its work force by 25% [and] close its operation in Atlanta.... The company reported that its first-quarter loss more than doubled, to $217m...from $101.3m...a year earlier [even though] sales nearly doubled, to $77.2m from $37.5m....
   [Sounds like the Amazon.com syndrome - the more you sell, the more you lose.]

5. NEC woes likely to continue, despite good results for year, by Miki Tanikawa, NYT, W1.
   ...NEC will shut down its memory chip operation in the United States [which] will eliminate 700 jobs....

6. Etc. - Manufacturers' Services Ltd., Globe wire services via BG, D6.
   ...of Concord MA will cut 10% of its work force in the first half..\..citing [and increasing -ed.] economic uncertainty.... The company's website says it employs 5,000 workers....
   [Giving us 500 jobcuts.]

7. VerticalNet restructuring, by Saul Hansell, NYT, C4.
   ...A once high-flying company...based in Horsham, Pa..\..that provides information and marketplaces in 59 industries [will] restructure and lay off 25% of its 1,080 employees [= 270 jobcuts]....

8. Robertson Stephens fires 200 workers, by Scott Nelson, BG, D6.
   ...A division of FleetBoston Financial Corp., laid off...workers this week as part of an ongoing effort to cut costs [& customers - ed.] and cope with [& create - ed.] weaker financial markets.... About 300 people or almost one in five employees, have left Robertson Stephens since the begiinning of the year....

9. C-bridge [Internet Solutions] layoffs set, Bloomberg via BG, D6.
   ...A...Cambridge MA-based..\..Web consulting company will cut about 90 jobs, or 19% of its work force to reduce costs.... C-bridge had 480 employees on April 24.... C-bridge is also reducing rent costs and closing some locations. The company said last month [3/09/2001] it would cut 105 jobs in North America and the Asia-Pacific region and would shut an office in Sydney....

1. EarthLink may seek Cox cable deal, by Simon Romero, NYT, C3.
   ...The nation's third-largest Internet service provider...earlier this week...reduced its payroll by 900 jobs, or 12%, in the most recent quarter.

2. Britain: Slowdown in phone equipment, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
   Hurt by falling demand from big customers in the U.S., Bookham Technology, a British manufacturer of fiber optic components...has cut its work force by 166, to 812. The figures were the latest sign of repercussions in Britain from the U.S. slowdown.

3. Etc. - Be Free Inc., Globe staff & wire services, BG, E7.
   ...A provider of marketing services [based in Marlborough, Mass.] has cut 50 jobs, or 20% of its work force, since last month to reign in costs as it loses dot-com customers....

4. Etc. - Astral Point Communications, Globe staff & wire services, BG, E7.
   ...A Chelmsford MA optical networking start-up...is cutting 45 jobs, about a fifth of its work force, to cope with the slowdown in telecommunications spending....

5. Globe sending 800 buyout offers, BG, E7.
   The Boston Globe is sending nearly 800 letters with buyout offers to eligible management and union employees this week as part of a cost-savings program. Company officials said they expected only a small percentage of the offers would be accepted or needed to meet the target for reducing costs.
   [Let's estimate an expectation of 5% acceptance and therefore an intention to cut 40 jobs.]
   The officials said employees would have 45 days to decide whether to take the buyout offers and that the program would close in late June. The Globe and its corporate parent, The New York Times Co., announced cost-cutting steps last month in response to a drop in advertising revenue, rising newsprint costs, and the slowing economy.

6. Teledyne [Technologies] reports lower earnings, by Matt Richtel, NYT, C3.
   ...The Los Angeles-based [maker of] electronic and communication products \will\ cut 5% of its work force [and] said that the staff cutbacks would save its $13m.
   [I.e., unspecified layoffs.]

1. Flextronics cuts 7,000 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The second-biggest contract electronics manufacturer has cut about...10% of its work force and trimmed production capacity by 15% because of slowing demand. Most of the jobs are in North America.

2. JDS Uniphase issues profit warning and plans to cut jobs - No quick shrinking is seen for the surplus of communications network equipment, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ["Surplus of communications"? What about the surplus of manhours?]
   ...The largest vendor of lasers, amplifiers and other components for optical communications networks said yesterday that sales and profits in the current quarter would be well below Wall Street's already diminished expectations and that it planned to cut its work force by 20%, or 5,000 employees....
   [Note previous cut of 3000 on 2/28 which was billed as a 10% cut, indicating a pre-cut workforce of 30,000 and an aftercut force of 27,000. However, today's 5000 cut is billed as a 20% or 1/5 cut, indicating a pre-cut workforce of 25,000. Somewhere in between JDS must have lost an additional 2000. Sooo, here we should have counted a (5000+2000=) 7,000 cut out of a 27,000 total workforce, which is a big 26%, but we didn't have the sophistication to count the unannounced extra 2000 cuts today (4/25/2001) or when JDS came up again on 6/28/2001, #6, so we'll have to settle all this on 7/27/2001, #2.]

3. Lucent posts big losses in quarter - Ability to raise cash is hampered by charges, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Hampered by charges stemming from the elimination of 10,000 full-time jobs [counted on 1/25/2001] and more than 2,200 contract positions, Lucent's loss...was $3.7B...as orders from small communications companies all but disappeared....

4. Cooper Industries plans to reduce work force by 2,000, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The maker of Halo lighting fixtures and Crescent wrenches will cut...about 6% of its work force of 34,300, by the end of the year as it moves production to Mexico and Asia to reduce expenses.... Cooper also said first-quarter earnings fell 33%, led by a decline in sales in the tool and hardware business. Profit was also hurt in telecommunications and electrical products.

5. Lucent reports big second-quarter losses, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Last month, after repeatedly lowering the [opening] price for its chip-making unit, Agere Systems, Lucent managed to complete a public offering in the company. The transaction allowed Lucent to transfer $2.5B of debt off its balance sheet and onto Agere's.
   [Talk about "still born." Talk about infanticide!]
   Agere lost $148m...in the quarter, in contrast to earnings of $65m...a year earlier. Agere also said it would cut 2,000 jobs, or 11% of its work force. Most of the cuts will take place at plants in Pa., Ca., and Fla....

6. Morgan Stanley will eliminate 1,500 jobs to pare costs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. is eliminating about...4% of the staff in its securities and fund-management units..\..to trim costs as revenue slumps.... The move adds to the biggest round of financial industry job cuts since 1998 and follows layoffs at UBS Warburg, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs Group, Bear Stearns, Lazard, Charles Schwab and Credit Suisse First Boston. Morgan said jobs would be cut through dismissals and early retirement.

7. Phelps Dodge will eliminate 500 jobs in the Americas, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's second-largest copper producer behind Codelco of Chile..\..is cutting...administrative jobs in North and South America as part of a restructuring to increase income by $30m this year. The company...based in Phoenix..\..is evaluating which jobs could instead be outsourced.... The company also reported first-quarter earnings of $14.2m, in large part from $30.9m gained from settlements reached with several insurance companies on longstanding environmental liability claims....

8. Israel: El Al cuts routes, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Israel's state airline is eliminating 10 international routes, selling six jumbo jets and laying off several hundred workers in response to a financial squeeze brought on by falling tourist traffic and high fuel prices. The airline lost more than $100m last year and is seeking state aid to cover the costs of security and of keeping its fleet grounded on the Jewish sabbath.
   ["Several hundred" layoffs? Let's call it 300 and correct it if and when they ever condescend to get more specific. And "state aid" from Israel means you and me, because our dumb legislators give away a $5B "foreign aid" handout of our tax money to Israel every year - plus a $3B one to Egypt to "avoid favoritism" (huh?!).]
   The government is again discussing plans to sell the ailing company....
   [Sell it, sell it, before it bankrupts Americans!]

9. Cargill Inc., Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Wayzata, Minn., the largest agricultural company in the U.S., [will] dismiss 80 workers and close three mills accounting for 12% of its flour-making capacity because of rising energy costs and competition. The mills are in North Topeka, Kan., Jacksonville, Fla., and Springfield, Ill.

1. In a cost-cutting move, 3M says it will eliminate 5,000 jobs - An impatient chief tightens the belt at a fairly healthy company, by Claudia Deutsch, NYT, C5.
   The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., reacting to the slowing economy with a pre-emptive strike, said yesterday that it would cut 7%...of its work force....
   [This isn't a "pre-emptive strike." This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And France today (4/24/2001) is taking steps to block this kind of recession-inducing behavior.]

2. Compaq's results fall short of [earnings] estimates - 2,000 more job cuts are set, bringing total to 10% of staff, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C4.
   The [Houston-based] Compaq Computer Corp., which recently lost its top spot in the desktop personal computer industry [to Dell] last month [3/16]...said it would cut 5,000 jobs. But yesterday, its CEO, Michael D. Capellas, said the total number of positions eliminated would reach 7,000, most coming within six weeks. About 4,500 employees will be laid off, he said, and the remaining job cuts will be accomplished through attrition. Nearly 2,000 employees have already lost their jobs in the last month, Mr. Capellas said....

3. W. W. Grainger closing Web venture, cutting 178 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...A seller of maintenance and repair products will...shut...down a money-losing Internet venture. The cuts, representing about 1% of Grainger's 16,000 employees, will take place at the Material Logic unit, which is based in the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire....

4. Raytheon to lay off at 2 Andover sites, by Ross Kerber, Boston Globe, D7.
   ...about 100 workers...citing foreign arms sales levels and falling demand for cellphone components. About two-thirds of those affected work at a machine shop that assembles and tests parts for weapons systems such as the Patriot and Hawk missiles.... The remainder of the layoffs, Raytheon said, is due to reduced demand for celular handset components. The company has about 13,000 employees in Massachusetts....

5. Clorox Co., NYT, C4.
   ...Oakland, Calif., a leading maker of cat litter...would close a factory in Wrens, Ga., and dismiss 50 employees to lower costs.

6. Last 6 employees leave Katsin/Loeb, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C8.
   ...in San Francisco, including Daniel Katsin, president. [They] are leaving to join Gardner Geary Coll in San Francisco.... As recently as January, Katsin/Loeb, which was founded in 1989, had 30 employees....

1. Nokia's earnings meet expectations, while Ericsson disappoints, by Suzanne Kapner, NYT, B1.
   ...A very short list [would be] technology companies that have not disappointed investors. Ericsson of Sweden failed to make the list. It posted a loss, said it would eliminate 12,000 more jobs and warned that its business was unlikely to improve any time soon....
   [This is down from the expected number of Ericsson cuts, per "Citing U.S. slowdown, Philips will cut 7,000 jobs," by Suzanne Kapner, 4/18/2001 NYT, W1, which states, "And Ericsson AB, the Swedish mobile-phone equipment maker, is expected to provide additional details of its cuts on Friday, when it reports first-quarter results; analysts say the new cuts could bring the total number of jobs that Ericsson has eliminated to 20,000, or just under a quarter of its work force."]

2. Honeywell [International] to cut jobs to remain competitive, AP via NYT, B3.
   ...The 6,500 job cuts represent about 5% of its global work force...

3. Silicon Graphics to trim 15% of its work force, AP via NYT, B3.
   ...A maker of high-performance computers [will] cut 1,000 jobs... after it posted a wider-than-expected third-quarter loss....

4. Janus Capital, a funds operator, is eliminating 546 jobs, Reuters via NYT, B3.
   ...The main unit of the mutual fund operator Stilwell Financial Inc. [is] eliminating...shareholder servicing and operations jobs, 24% of its work force.... The company's call center in Austin, Tex., will be closed, eliminating 400 jobs, and the rest will be cut at the Janus headquarters in Denver....
   The company is also increasing its use of automation; earlier this month it cut 45 training positions as it automated training functions.
   [Whoah, this means we have to count 546+45= 591 jobcuts here and it illustrates 2 biggies -
   1. Numero Uno - now who was it in the back of the class that was chanting "technology creates more jobs than it destroys"??
   2. Numero Due - training is always the first thing to get cut in a crunch]
   The cuts come on top of 468 job eliminations announced in February [2/03 #2] in response to falling demand for its products and declining call volume....

5. Former Allaire workers laid off, by Matthew Brelis, BG, C1.
   When Allaire Corp. of Newton agreed to be purchased by Macromedia Inc. of San Francisco in January, Macromedia chief executive Rob Burgess said layoffs of the 550 Allaire employees were not likely. The $360m deal closed last month. This week, however, Macromedia said it was laying off about 170 employees [10%] of the 1,700 total Macromedia employees, some of them Allaire employees. A company spokeswoman...said the staff reduction was the result of..."synergies" between Allaire and Macromedia.
   [Again the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]

1. As its losses grow, Nortel plans to cut more jobs, by Simon Romero, NYT, C4.
   ...The large Canadian communcations equipment company [will] cut an additional 5,000 jobs after losses ballooned in the first quarter. Total job cuts are now expected to reach 20,000, or 20% or Nortel's work force, by the middle of this year, the company said. Nortel has already eliminated about 10,000 jobs this year [1/12 and 2/16] after demand for some of its products declined sharply....
   [Let's cut the suspense and count all 10,000 (10%) of the remaining 20,000 company-expected jobcuts now. This 20,000 figure will reach 30,000 on 6/16.]

2. Kimball [International] says it has laid off 9% of its workers, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...[A maker of] office furniture and electronic components for products like antilock brakes and insulin-measuring devices, laid off 1,025 workers...as sales decreased in some segments. The job cuts occurred between Jan. 1 and April 18 throughout the company, said the CFO, Robert F. Schneider.... Excluding acquisitions, sales declined in the furniture and cabinet, and contract electronics-assembly segments, the company said.
   [So what was the point of the acquisitions then, if they're going to be excluded?? This may be another case of the takeover-downsizing virus. To give credit where credit's due, Kimball did try to avoid some downsizing by enacting shorter workweeks back in March (3/15)

3. FleetBoston CFO says firings likely, by Scott Nelson, BG, C8.
   ...Eugene McQuade said the bank will probably have to lay off about 500 employees as part of cost-cutting initiatives. He said the most likely target for cuts, though, would be Fleet's capital markets based outside of Boston. The San Francisco-based Robertson Stephens division has already laid off 80 workers, and McQuade said those cuts are included in his 500 total. He also emphasized that most of the $500-700m Fleet hopes to save this year will come from areas other than staff reduction.
   [OK, we counted the Robertson-Stephens 80 on 3/27, so we'll just count 420 now.]

4. Japan: Sega cuts jobs, AP via NYT, W1.
   ...A maker of video games [is] cutting its work force by 28% in an attempt to become profitable by March 2002....
   [Not too informative. Combing the Web, we find 381 Sega jobcuts in "Sega cuts work force by 28%," AP-NY-04-19-01 via AOLNews via RadioTony, which states, "Sega Corp., home of Sonic the Hedgehog and other popular video games...said Thursday it will continue reducing its work force from a high of 1,081 in January to about 700 by March 2002, all at Sega's Tokyo headquarters. About 200 people have already left, spokesman Munehiro Umemura said...."]

5. Datek Online [Holdings] says it has cut 10% of its work force, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...A privately held online brokerage firm...cut 131 positions...in conjunction with its plan to move its HQ to Jersey City..\..in a bid to cut costs [because it] has been pinched by a sharp slowdown in customer stock trading brought on by falling markets....

6. SportsLine.com plans job cuts, AP via NYT, C6.
   ...The company, which runs the Web site for CDS Sports..\..plans to cut up to 92 jobs, or 20% or its domestic work force, because of a weakening advertising market and slowing economy....

7. Bozell to lay off 6% of work force, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C7.
   In another sign of the economy's slowing, the NY office of the Bozell Group, part of True North Communications [is] laying off 28 employees...of its staff of 475 [because of] "the softening economic environment." The agency laid off about a dozen people earlier this year but said those were related to a restructuring in the creative department.
   [We've got 'em down for 57 layoffs on 3/14/2001, but maybe that was a completely different situation?? We'll just leave it at 28 on this occasion.]

8. SportsLine.com plans job cuts, AP via NYT, C6.
   ...Another sports Web company, Quokka Sports Inc. [is] shutting operations \according to\ CNET, an Internet news service..\..after Olympic organizers said they hoped to replace Quokka with another company that can provide content for an Olympic Web site....

1. Spanish bank offers buyouts at one of its Brazilian units, by Jennifer Rich, NYT, W1.
   The new owners wanted the bank, but maybe not the bankers.
   [Again the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]
   Banco Santander Central Hispano, the Spanish bank that acquired the formerly state-owned Banco do Estado de Sao Paulo, or Banespa, last year, offered buyouts today to more than four-fifths of Banespa's 22,300 employees in a cost-cutting drive.... Santander...hopes to cut overall costs by a third over the next two years.... Analysts think as many as 6,000 workers [27%] may ultimately be let go, at a one-time cost to the bank of about $150m. Savings from the staff cuts could reach $175m a year....
   [Minus the drop in employee and employee dependents and employee&dependents-linked multiplier markets.]
   Gabriel Jaramillo, the president of Banco Santander in Brazil, said in a letter to the workers, "The moment has come to direct the impact of..\..modernization and restructuring projects...on the work force."...
   [No, that moment only comes immediately before bankruptcy and liquidation, apart from prorating hours&pay for everyone, including Gabriel.]

2. Hewlett-Packard warns of dismal earnings and job cuts - As many as 3,000 managers may soon be out of work, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C4.
   ...as much as 20% of its managerial staff.... HP [will] trim its management-level ranks to 11,000 from 14,000 within 60 days, to bring its manager-to-employee ratio more in line with its competitors..\..
   [Well, their competitors will be glad to hear that, because that was one of HP's competitive advantages, like a smaller teacher-student ratio - that, and HP's great esprit de corps, now clobbered. Who says "if women ruled the world, things would be different"? Carly Fiorina did, however, come up with a cute metaphor -]
   "I say that with great caution because visibility remains limited"..\..Carleton S. Fiorina, the president and CEO...said, referring to her prediction that the troubles have bottomed out....
   [Would that it were only a fogbank she was talking about.]
   ...Some managers who lost jobs might move to other positions within the company. To cut more costs, employees will be asked to use up accumulated vacation days...
   [i.e., a brief whiff of timesizing]
   ...though the company intends to resume paying bonuses and granting pay raises this year.
   [Pretty stupid: clobbering morale with one hand and trying to nurse it back with the other. Edwards Deming would turn over in his grave.]
   Both programs had been suspended.
   [And suspended they should have remained, in lieu of downsizing. But Carly probably wants a raise, despite her inability to spend what she's got.]
   Buoyed in part by the Federal Reserve's cut in interest rates...
   [an action akin to putting on economic mascara...]
   HP gained $2.65, to $31.90, in trading today. In July 2000, it was trading at $68.09. The stock may also have ridden on the coattails of Intel, which said Tuesday that its microprocessor sales to computer makers had stabilized. "It may not be that their business has stabilized," said Laura Conigliaro, an analyst with Goldman Sachs & Co. "But investors are so interested in hearing something that is positively biased that that became a very easy word to glom onto."...
   [And there in a nutshell is the Achilles' heel of our present form of capitalism. So vast and huge a concentration of wealth, and so desperate a group of investor-speculators to find somewhere to store their gains, that the feedback function of the overall system is shot. They are like cancer patients who don't want the truth. They want only comforting words.]

3. [And here's the type that the future will really roast - in profit but still sabotaging consumer markets with layoffs -]
   Celestica profit beats estimates, by Timothy Pritchard, NYT, C4.
   The Toronto-based...world's third-largest contract manufacturer of electronic components reported a 95% increase in Q1 profit yesterday, slightly beating analysts' expectations. But because of a drop in orders from its customers - about 40 companies, including IBM, Motorola and HP - Celestica [will] eliminate about 3,000 jobs, representing 10% of its global work force, in Q2....
   [Thus doing its bit to guarantee the deepening of the downturn. In the stabler and wiser future, such CEOs will be strung up by their thumbs.]

4. [And here's another case, almost as bad -]
   Tellabs cuts jobs, by Andrew Zipern, NYT, C4.
   ...A medium-size maker of communications equipment...based in Lisle, Ill. \is\ cutting 6% of its work force, or about 550 workers, even as it met reduced earnings expectations.... Tellabs said that because of lower expected revenue growth it will cut the pay of all corporate officers...
   [...that, at least, might drive home a tiny bit of negative feedback]
   eliminate salary increases and end development of a new switch.... Richard Noetebaert, the Tellabs president and CEO...
   [in accompanying foto - ever notice how all these happyhappy white guys look like male cheerleaders? Not a cloud is allowed to darken their skies. "Hi, team. You're fired."]
   "We're operating...in a very different market than it was just a few weeks ago."
   [Oh reahly, Richahd. How lovely.]

5. Digital unit at Times Co. cuts more jobs, by Felicity Barringer, NYT, C8.
   For the second time this year, The New York Times Co.'s digital unit has cut jobs, laying off 47 more people...in addition to 69 people who were laid off in January [1/08]. ...Two-thirds of the layoffs were at Abuzz, an information-sharing business that the company bought in 1999...
   [Again the deathly acquire-fire slide. Soon "Abuzz" will be "aShhh."]
   ...and at Winetoday.com. ...The Abuzz functions [will] be run out of the offices of Boston.com, one of the company's larger sites [- isn't that the Boston Globe?! - and] the Calif.-based operations of Winetoday.com will be closed...and that site will be managed out of the digital unit's NY offices....
   [So we go from Winetoday.com to Whinetoday.com.]
   In a conference call with analysts this week, executives of The Times Co. reiterated their commitment to make the digital unit profitable by the end of next year....
   [...if there's any of it left.]

6. J. P. Morgan Chase profit falls 40% on market turbulence, by Riva Atlas, NYT, C6.
   ...While the perfomance was relatively strong given the climate, the bank's executives cautioned that if the markets do not rebound, JP Morgan might compensate for further earnings shortfalls by reducing costs even further than planned. This could include job cuts.
   [And then they make the fateful statement -]
   "We are taking even deeper cuts to right-size to a slower market," Dina Dublon, CFO of JP Morgan said in a meeting with analysts yesterday....
   ["To right-size to a slower market." Boy we haven't heard "rightsize" since before the Flood (Noah's). Nice to see JP Morgan catching up to the last century.]

1. Citing U.S. slowdown, Philips will cut 7,000 jobs - Electronics maker sees possible loss, by Suzanne Kapner, NYT, W1.
   Scrambling to react to an economic slowdown that has spread swiftly to Europe from the United States, Royal Philips Electronics NV said today that it would eliminate up to...3% of its workforce...from its mobile handset and consumer electronics divisions.... Now, with demand for mobile phones waning, Philips and other smaller players are finding it harder to compete with the leaders, Nokia and Motorola..\..
   "The weakness in the telecommunications and personal computing industries is now worldwide," said Ben Geerts, a spokesman for Philips in Amsterdam.... In offering a tempered outlook, Philips joins a growing list of technology companies. Some of the hardest hit have been European and American makers of mobile phones.... Motorola recently said it would cut its mobile-phone manufacturing payroll by a third. Alcatel SA of France and Siemens AG of Germany have announced cuts of thousands of jobs. And Ericsson AB, the Swedish mobile-phone equipment maker, is expected to provide additional details of its cuts on Friday, when it reports first-quarter results....

2. Income down 48%, Kodak will cut jobs, by Claudia Deutsch, NYT, C5.
   The Eastman Kodak Co., grappling with a transition to digital technologies even as the slowing economy crimps sales in its conventional film and paper businesses, [will] eliminate as many as 3,500 jobs over the next few months.... Analysts expect the brunt of the cuts to be in manufacturing and in the back-office and support jobs classified as sales and general administrative expenses.... Kodak has already farmed out the manufacturing of many cameras to companies in Asia....
   [Wonder who they expect to be left to buy their products?]
   Although Kodak has cut about 23,000 jobs since 1997, most analysts contend that further slimming is needed.
   [But then, analysts don't think too many moves ahead. Here's an interesting measure -]
   Kodak's sales per employee are well below $200,000; the worldwide sales per employee of its prime competitor, Fuji, are $325,000, and even Polaroid, whose earnings have also been under pressure, wrests $215,000 in sales per employee.
   [This measure is designed to get a company to automate more and downsize more, and sharpen the sabotage of its own markets - because once all the work is done by one man minding billions of machines, where's the spending power, where are the markets? As Sismondi said in 1819, "In truth then, there is nothing more to wish for than that the king, remaining alone on the island, by constantly turning a crank, might produce, through automata, all the output of England." Nothing more to wish for except someone to buy all that output. This, then, is the contradiction an economy gets into when it takes the worksavings of technology and uses them, not to cut work hours for everyone, but to waste more and more consumers by cutting their jobs.]

3. Texas Instruments cuts 2,500 jobs, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...6% of its workforce...because of a continued slump in global demand....

4. Timken plans to cut about 1,500 jobs in next two years, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of bearings used in automobiles, railcars and computers...based in Canton, Ohio..\..will cut about...7.3% of [its] workforce of 20,500..\..during the next two years in a restructuring.... Most of the jobs are at two plants that the company will close and one it will sell....

5. Second round of layoffs at Convergent, by Andrew Zipern, NYT, C4.
   ...A provider of Internet and network services [will] lay off 400 employees, or 67% of its workforce, and...probably seek Chapter 11...because it ha[s] been unable to raise additional financing.

6. Scholastic will lay off 100 editorial staff members, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...after ending development of its literacy textbook series.... Scholastic [Corp.,] based in New York, said the literacy books are too expensive to develop....

7. Network Engines to lay off 30%, Bloomberg via BG, F7.
   ...A maker of computer servers for Internet use...will fire about 30% of its employees and curtail expansion plans as part of an effort to reduce spending.
   [Isn't it funny how, once a downturn starts, they always blame consumers for "reducing spending," yet the CEOs have been doing it for months and years beforehand to bring it about. What morons. They think markets come out of a hat like magic, and not out of their own employees.]
   About 170 employees will remain after the firings. The Canton [Mass.] company...currently has about 240 workers....
   [So 240-170= 70 jobcuts.]

8. 30 employees laid off at Cohn & Wolfe, by Elliott & Fass, NYT, C2.
   In another sign of the slowing economy...a public relations unit of Young & Rubicam laid off...yesterday about 8.6% of its American staff of more than 350. Stephen Aiello, president and worldwide chief executive at Cohn & Wolfe, attributed the layoffs, to be spread among all the agency's American offices and practices, to the economic downturn, cautiousness among clients and some normal attrition. Cohn & Wolfe also laid off 10 employees in January....

1. First Union to acquire Wachovia for $13.1B, Bloomberg via BG, C2.
   ..."We're going to be infinitely stronger together than we were separately,"..\..CEO Kennedy Thompson told reporters. "We're going to have tremendous market share up and down the East Coast." The company plans to cut about $890m of expenses from the combined bank, eliminating 7,000 jobs over three years....
   [What a moron this guy is. His predecessor paid $17.1B for CoreStates Financial and $2.1B for the Money Store and both flopped - turned out to be unprofitable. So he's incapable of learning from others' mistakes, even others close to him. And how's he think he's going to be "infinitely stronger" with a 7000-man weaker force? And what good is a "tremendous" share of a smaller market - a market he and his suicidally near-sighted buds are continuously shrinking with layoffs? According to the more tentative NYT version of this story, even Wall Street thinks he's nuts - "First Union pursues Wachovia, making offer of $13.1B - A deal that First Union finds 'compelling,' but analysts find confusing - A deal that spurred Wall Street to call potential suitors to counter First Union," by Andrew Sorkin, NYT, C1. You know you're in trouble when even the cretins on Wall Street are shaking their heads - "The move left analysts wondering what First Union's executives are thinking. Just a year ago, the bank, based in Charlotte, NC, was slashing staff and shutting branches as its managers said they wanted to focus on improving profitability; now it is spending billions to buy Wachovia, which is based 70 miles away in Winston-Salem, NC." This is like trying to save a bad marriage by having a baby. These guys are clearly frustrated with trying to grow their business into a downsizing-induced recession, and they're so bored that only the "rush" of the biggest damn takeover they can leverage will keep them awake, however big the debt and the downer the day after. The future will simply ban mergers and acquisitions. Want more market share? WORK FOR IT! Or engineer it by paying yourself a couple of million bucks less and each of your people a couple of thousand more. They spend it. You don't. Markets depend on spending, not saving or "investing." Markets depend on them, not you.]

2. Eaton to cut 600 jobs after earnings fall off, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...[A maker of] hoses, couplings and hydraulic equipment..\..based in Cleveland [will] cut just over 1% of its workforce from its leading fluid power machinery division because of deteriorating conditions in the North American markets....

3. Cisco, powerhouse of the Internet, retreats, citing a frail economy, by Berenson & Gaither, NYT, front page, C4.
   ...The company, which said in March that it would lay off 8,000 employees [see 3/10/2001], raised the figure to 8,500 yesterday. Cisco now employs about 44,000 workers....
   [So, 500 more layoffs, an additional 1%.]

4. Cuts at Comair because of strike, AP via NYT, C8.
   HEBRON, Ky -...The airline's 1,350 pilots went on strike March 26 and Comair immediately stopped all flight operations..\.. To keep Comair financially viable until flights resume..\..Comair will reduce its fleet to 102 airplanes from 119 and eliminate 200 pilot positions, the company said....

1. Outpost.com makes changes after a loss, Bloomberg via NYT, C6.
   ...[A seller of] consumer electronics, computers and related technologies over the Internet...based in Kent [Conn.] known formally as Cyberian Outpost Inc..\..cut 30% of its workforce...110 employees..\.. The company...on Thursday posted a Q4 pro forma loss of $10.1m....

2. DDB unit laying off 8% of its [North American] staff, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C9.
   Tribal DDB Worldwide...has laid off...about 24 people out of 300....

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