Timesizing® Associates - HOMEPAGE

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Downsizings, Aug. 17-31, 2001
[Commentary] ©2001 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

8/31/2001  6 downsizings reported in NY Times (NYT) & Boston Globe (BG), totaling 16,508 jobcuts (not counting "Citigroup drops 3,622 independent brokers," Bloomberg via NYT, C3 and not counting 170 layoffs according to "Internet [World] magazine cuts schedule," AP-NY-08-30-01 1203EDT via AOLNews via RadioTony) -

1. Accelerating decline in Japan evokes rust belt comparisons - Unemployment surges as work shifts overseas, by James Brooke, NYT, front page.
   ...Some companies, adhering to tradition, are cutting jobs abroad first. Today, the Kyocera Corp. said it would eliminate 20% of its workforce, or 10,000 jobs, mostly in San Diego and South Carolina....

2. Schwab to eliminate 2,400 jobs in new round of cuts, by Patrick McGeehan, NYT, C5.
   ...The Charles Schwab Corp. sent a ripple of tension through the brokerage industry yesterday by announcing that it would eliminate...more jobs in the next few weeks....

3. Accelerating decline in Japan evokes rust belt comparisons, by James Brooke, NYT, front page.
   ...Other big manufacturers are making painful cuts at home.... Today, Oki Electric Industry said it was cutting 2,200 jobs in Japan....

4. Deep in debt, Swissair to cut back, by Elizabeth Olson, NYT, W1.
   GENEVA...- The Swissair Group closed the book today on its ambitions to become a major airline competitor, saying it would sell big stakes in two profitable units to reduce its $9B debt. It will also eliminate 1,250 jobs to cut costs....

5. Carrier is cutting 600 jobs at 2 sites in Tennessee, Bloomberg via NYT, C3.
   The Carrier unit of the United Technologies Corp. is eliminating 600 jobs at two operations in Tennessee because of declining orders. Carrier is the largest maker of air-conditioners....
   [Good God, the hottest summer in living memory and the biggest air conditioner company has declining orders?!]
   The job cuts amount to 31% of the workforce at the operations...

6. Etc. - Westwood MA-based ADE Corp., wire services via BG, C4.
   ...which makes equipment to inspect computer-chip parts, is firing about 10% of its workforce, which numbers 580 people, to reduce costs amid declining demand for its products.
   [So 10% of 580 is 58 jobcuts.]
   The company...already cut jobs in July.

1. Corning expected to cut work force by 1,000 jobs, AP via NYT, C4.
   A sudden cooling of demand for products will force Corning Inc. to cut 1,000 jobs from its optical fiber workforce.... James Flaws, CFO, said orders had been slowing across all fiber product lines.... Since the beginning of the year, Corning has announced the elimination of 8,000 positions, or about 20% of its global workforce..\.. Stock closed yesterday down....
   [In late July, we brought our count of Corning layoffs up to the 6,000 level (see 7/26). So now we need to bring it up to the 8,000 level by counting the present 1,000 announcement plus 1,000 unnannounced since July, for a total of 2,000 jobcuts. Starting from 40,000 total workforce at the start of the year, the current 2,000 layoffs completing the overall 8,000 layoffs and taking the overall total workforce down from 34,000 to 32,000. That means the current 2,000 layoffs are 2000/34000x100%= 5.88% of the immediate pre-2000-cuts total workforce.]

2. AT&T Corp., NYT, C4.
   ...New York, the long-distance telephone company, [will] close a customer-service office in San Antonio to cut costs after demand for calling services declined. The company has not decided whether or not to offer the office's 590 employees other jobs at AT&T.
   [And this is the just kind of delay that will make demand for their calling services decline further. This is the second article today that specifically mentions that hallmark of of the Great Depression, declining demand.]

3. Sun expects another losing quarter - Big customers, like the dot-coms, just aren't buying, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C4.
   ...Earlier this month, Sun said that fewer than 2% of its 43,000 workers would lose their jobs, but that some would remain within the company in new roles.
   [2% would be 860. Fewer than 2% suggests 850, but in our 8/01, #5, 872 was mentioned, so let's stick with 860, of which we've only counted 300 back on 8/01. But now that the 860-level downsizing is being recalled, let's count the rest = 860-300= 560 jobcuts.]

4. 40,000 IRS returns, payments lost or ruined, AP via BG, C2.
   At least 40,000 federal tax returns and payments involving $810m were either lost or destroyed...the Senate Finance Committee reported yesterday.... The tax returns and payments were sent by taxpayers in New England and parts of New York this year to a Pittsburgh lockbox run by Mellon Bank under a contract with the federal government.
   Earlier this month, Mellon lost its contract to run the facility following what the bank's chairman called "gross disregard" and failure to follow company policy by some employees.... It remains a mystery exactly what happened to the returns and payments or whether the incident was deliberate or a mistake.
   [40,000 missing returns a "mistake" - get real.]
   All that investigators or Mellon Bank will say publicly is that it does not appear to be a case of identity theft, stolen checks or disclosure of sensitive taxpayer information.
   [Who said it was? Get to the point, cowards!]
   Mellon's chairman and CEO, Martin McGuinn, said in an e-mail that "several" bank employees were fired after a probe found taxpayer submissions that were "hidden, and in some cases, destroyed."
   [What a crock. Mellon is completely liable. But how naive must the IRS be getting not to receive its own mail?!]
   Loss of the contract resulted in layoffs of 106 other employees.
   The probe began after taxpayers began contacting the IRS when their payment checks had failed to clear. ...The agency has now received 22,000 complaints of uncashed checks. Affected taxpayers submitted tax returns and payments this year to the Pittsburgh lockbox from Conn., Me., NH, Vt., Mass., RI and parts of NY..\.. The committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus...recommended they review bank records to determine if any check sent to the IRS failed to clear.... The IRS has already set up a special unit to handle these cases...1-800-829-1040....

5. MetLife trimming jobs in Boston unit - Reportedly lays off 50-75 workers; more cost-cutting expected, by Beth Healy, BG, C5.
   ...Calls...were returned by a MetLife spokesman in New York. Kevin Foley, the spokesman, said, "There have been some decisions in Boston to eliminate some positions in the 25-to-30 in the management ranks."...
   At the beginning of this year, New England had 2,200 employees in the Boston area, 300 of whom were to be transferred out of town in an earlier cost-cutting effort....

1. Gateway plans foreign cuts and layoffs, by Barnaby Feder, NYT, C1.
   Gateway [will] lay off about 5,000 workers, or 25% of its work force, and eliminate most overseas operations in an effort to return to profitability by the last quarter of this year. ...The restructuring...will include the closing of its Salt Lake City factory and four of its nine domestic telephone support centers.... The reogranization will eliminate all operations in the Asia-Pacific region and is expected to lead to a similarly sweeping retreat from Europe after a legally mandated process of consulting with unions is completed next month. [There are] remaining small operations in Latin America..\.. "We don't have to be a global business to succeed," Theodore Waitt, the company's chairman and CEO said in a conference call with analysts....
   Gateway...based in San Diego, has been pummeled since last fall by weak consumer demand for personal computers and by the impact of a price war initiated by Dell Computer, regarded as the industry's lowest-cost producer. Prior efforts to adjust, including a January management shakeup in which Mr. Waitt, the company's co-founder and largest shareholder, returned to active management as CEO, and the elimination of 3,000 jobs, failed to reverse the slide....
   [So much for eliminating thousands of your own best customers as a solution. But have they learned to cut hours for all instead of jobs for some? No, they're still at it, amputating themselves. It's not so much that Timesizing, not downsizing, reverses slides, but that you're all in it together and you're getting more slack to figure out creative solutions, not less, so slides matter less. Our records show that Gateway cut only 2400 jobs in January (see 1/12/2001, #3), swollen to 3000 by 2/16 (see 2/16/2001, #1 fine print) of which we'd still only counted the 2400, but actually cut another 850 (in Ireland) in early August (see 8/09/2001, #3). That last story indicates that the 850 should be decremented from the 20,000 total worldwide workforce, leaving 19,150. Therefore, the 5000 cuts now are actually a 26% cut.]

2. Otis Elevator plans to cut jobs in Indiana and Mexico, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...The biggest elevator maker..\..the Otis elevator unit of the United Technologies Corp. plans to cut as many as 580 jobs...as it consolidates production of high-rise elevators and cuts costs. Otis...based in Farmington, Conn..\..will stop production at a Mexico City plant that makes parts for low- and mid-rise elevators. Work will be moved to Nogales, Mexico or contracted outside the company....

3. Lucent says it has closed its Israeli unit, Reuters via NYT, C13.
   JERUSALEM...- Lucent Technologies Inc. [has] closed...Chromatis Networks, which it bought last year for $4.5B in stock [see 6/01/2000], because the unit's focus on small customers no longer fit with Lucent's new strategy to serve large telephone companies....
   [How stupid do you have to be to waste $4,500,000,000 in equity via a complete about-face in 14 months? There's a big article right beside this titled "Former workers at Lucent see nest eggs vanish, too." It actually starts on the front page, A1. No wonder demand for goods and services is shrinking.]
   ...The Chromatis business...had 150 employees, most of whom worked in Israel....

4. Trouble for seed company, Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   The Delta and Pine Land Co., a leading cottonseed company...based in Scott, Miss. \will\ lay off 50 of its 700 workers and close a plant in Chandler, Ariz....

5. Etc. - ...Krone Optical Systems, Globe wire services via BG, C8.
   ...About 18 workers at the Krone Optical Systems plant in North Bennington, Vt., will be losing their jobs....

6. Michigan: Schools make cuts, by Elizabeth Stanton, NYT, A15.
   ...Because of a property tax cut approved in 1994, some districts whose increases in state aid fell below the inflation rate are cutting teaching positions, increasing class sizes and charging students to compete in sports.
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]
   The 1994 plan
   • cut school property taxes up to 82%
     [We should never make jumps of 82%. Ten percent at a time is about all we can absorb and stay healthy. As Lao Tzu said, "Rule the empire as you would cook a small fish." I.e., gently.]
   • moved the burden of school financing to the state from property owners
     [in other words, from taxpayers to taxpayers? Maybe the point is "from property taxes to state income taxes"? Ultimately we will begin to solve overpopulation by making parents pay for their children, so school taxes will focus on parents who have more kids that the current replacement (or whatever) rate.]
   • and tried to even spending among districts....
     [A simple "amen" at last.]

7. Insiders out in Harlem - 5 business mainstays are facing eviction, by Amy Waldman, NYT, A18.
   They call themselves the Harlem Five: a barbershop, a bar, a bodega, a pizza place and a Chinese takeout. Together, they have some 100 years in business at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Blvd and 148th St.... Their landlord, Warbrook Realty['s] president, Jeffrey Brooker...has asked them to be out by Friday or face eviction proceedings, so he can rehabilitatethe two buildings that house them. By all appearances, he does not want the stores to return when the work is done..\.. Grafton Skinner, the owner of [the bar] Thelma's Lounge...said, "...He suggested that we might not fit the landlords' requirements for returning. Pardon the word, but they're black also."...
   [Unspecified lost jobs.]
   Last Thursday, the [five business] owners convened in the Victory Barber Shop with Dorothy Desir, a..."cultural worker" for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council [and] some of her associates.... She kept trying to discuss themes like coalition-building and Garveyism. The business owners were more interested in discussing how they could preserve their economic futures....
   [Marcus Garvey's preaching is the source of Rastafari.]

1. Deere & Co. plan for revamping will cut nearly 2,000 jobs, by David Barboza, NYT, C7.
   ...The giant agriculture and construction equipment maker [will] restructur[e] its construction and forestry divisions and shed...the unit that makes Homelite leaf blowers, weed trimmers and chain saws.... Deere, which had been struggling for the last few years because of a depressed farm sector, said that it hoped to sell its Homelite business and close the unit's plant in Mexico because of huge losses in a division that accounted for just 2% of the company's sales..\.. The announcement came just months after Deere said it would cut back agriculture and construction production and eliminate 1,250 jobs, or about 8% of its workforce, because of slumping demand for its products....
   [If 8% of its workforce was 1250, then 100% was 15,625 and following the 1250 cutback, that left 14,375. That means the current jobcuts constitute 2000/14375x100%= a 14% cut of the survivors.]

2. Northrup Grumman to eliminate 500 jobs in southern California, AP via NYT, C4.
   The military contractor [will] consolidate most of its Navigation Systems division operations in Woodland Hills, Calif.... The division has headquarters in Baltimore and makes electronic components for airborne radar, navigation and air traffic control systems..\.. The division includes most of the advanced electronics businesses Northrup acquired when it bought Litton Industries in April.
   [Again the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]
   Three Litton plants in the Calif. communities of Agoura Hills, Goleta and Northridge will close and the employees will be transferred to Woodland Hills.... The 500 jobs to be cut represent about 4.5% of the company's 11,000 Calif. workers....

3. Canada shuts Atlantic coal mines for efficiency, by Anthony DePalma, NYT, A4.
   SYDNEY, Nova Scotia - ...Although regional power shortages are pushing up demand for coal across North America, the last of the fabled Cape Breton mines will close in the fall. Unable to find a buyer, the Canadian government, which has poured more than $1B into the mines since nationalizing them in 1967, has decided to let them go dark.... The closing of the mines also underscores the powerful forces [we's just call them "passing fashions"] that are squeezing, and some would say hardening, Canada's heart....
   More than 12,000 men once worked underground in dozens of mines. Now fewer than 500 work at the Prince mine, the last one still operating. Middle-aged, with paid-off mortgages and children headed for college, these men worry that they will have to leave [Cape Breton] Island to find work in the coal fields of Alberta or the offshore rigs in Newfoundland, if anyone is willing to take on their broken bones, weak eyes and weary backs....

4. Georgia-Pacific to cut 250 jobs at a paper mill, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...[A] company, based in Atlanta [which] employs about 85,000 people in North America and Europe \will\ retire four small, expensive machines that produce white paper..\..at a paper mill in Camas, Wash...focusing instead on faster-growing segments of the industry.... The cuts will leave the Wash. mill with about 1,200 workers.... Earlier this summer [see 6/14/2001, #5], Georgia-Pacific announced it was cutting more than 500 jobs, partly because of a weak market for wallboard....

1. 8/26 Chipmaker Toshiba reportedly plans to cut up to 20,000 jobs, Bloomberg via BG, E5.
   ...or about 11% of its workforce, and may merge its memory-chip business with a foreign partner to weather a slump in semiconductor prices...amid one of the industry's worst years on record..\..reports said. The second-largest chipmaker will pare back its group-wide staff of 190,000 employees as part of a reorganization, which will also include a review of the company's manufacturing operations, Asahi newspaper said.... Toshiba plans to separate its memory-chip business, merging it with either South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. or Infineon Technologies AG in Germany, the Nihon Keisai newspaper said.... In Japan, workers will be offered early retirement or reassigned to local subsidiaries, the Asahi report...said.
   Tokyo-based Toshiba, which doesn't anticipate a recovery in the technology industry in two years, expects the moves to shield the company from falling chip prices.
   [More likely such moves will accelerate mightily the big Death Spiral. The official announcement came out early on 8/28 so we're going to "cook" our figures here and backdate according to that, to put off having to invent some kind of ex-post-facto correction system. The relevant article is, "As Japan technology woes, deepen, Toshiba to cut 19,000," by Miki Tanikawa, 8/28/2001 NYT, C1. That also takes the percentage down, to 10%. This is likely just a PR number like $9.95 instead of $10 to make it sound less.]

2. 8/27 Its last client gone, agency is in limbo, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C2.
   The fate of the Focus Agency in Irving, Tex., is being determined after the loss of its last remaining client, Shell Energy Services in Houston. Mark Miller, president and CEO of Focus, said a decision about the agency and its estimated 15 to 20 employees would come in the next 90 days....

3. 8/26 Chipmaker Toshiba reportedly plans to cut up to 20,000 jobs, Bloomberg via BG, E5.
   ...Hitachi Ltd. also will cut jobs, Asahi [newspaper] said, without giving the number....

1. Hughes plans to cut 10% of its work force, Bloomberg via NYT, B2.
   Hughes Electronics, owner of the DirecTC satellite-broadcasting service [will] reduce its American workforce as much as 10% to cut costs in the slow economy.
   Hughes, which employs about 7,900 workers in the United States [will] take a charge in Q3 for the job reductions....
   [And 10% of 7900 is 790 jobcuts.]
   "It's a really sluggish economy and we're heavily into consumer businesses," said Richard Dore, a spokesman for the company....

2. Little fires 35 workers, Bloomberg via BG, C1.
   Arthur D. Little fired...1.2% of the management and technology-consulting company's staff...to reduce costs. The Cambridge MA company dismissed employees at offices throughout North America from among its workforce of 3,000.... About 15 [of the] workers lost their jobs in Chicago as the company shut its office in the city's financial district on Tuesday.
   Closely held Little said in March [see 3/13, #2] it would fire about 200 employees after the company withdrew an IPO of its C-quential unit. The move involved shutting offices in Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Mumbai.

1. France: Telecom layoffs, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
   France Telecom [will] cut 3,000 jobs, about one-fifth [20%] of the workforce, at Equant, the Dutch-registered data carrier. France Telecom has a 54.3% stake in Equant, the biggest data network of its kind, extending to 220 countries, which it merged with its Global One unit in June. The job cuts will cost $40-50m and save $100m annually, France Telecom said. Shares rose....

2. Finland: Layoffs at Sonera, AP via NYT, W1.
   Finland's largest mobile phone network...plans to lay off about 1,000 people, or nearly 9% of its workforce, to cut costs....

3. G.E. plans to shut factory, Bloomberg via NYT, C11.
   General Electric plans to close a Philadelphia plant where 216 workers make protection devices for industrial turbines. The company expects to buy the devices from outside to cut costs. Nearly half the workers are eligible for early retirement....

4. MKS Instruments to cut 118 jobs, citing a weakening third quarter, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...A maker of semiconductor test equipment...based in Andover, Mass. \will\ cut 118 jobs, or 7% of its workforce, warning that its Q3 results would fall short of earlier expectations....

5. Marquee firm in California cuts lawyers - Layoffs show profession vulnerable to economy, by Jonathan Glater, NYT, C1.
   Cooley Godward, one of the San Francisco area's highest-flying law firms during the Internet boom, told employees yesterday that more than 10% of the firm's lawyers would be laid off. The cutback - affecting 85 of the 645 lawyers as well as 50 paralegals and other members of the support staff - was one of the first publicly acknowledged and economically driven staff reductions at a big law firm in about a decade....
   [Totaling 85+50= 115 jobcuts.]

6. New Jersey - State agency to raze stretch of roadside hotels, AP via NYT, A17.
   A New Jersey casino development agency...the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, under a partnership with Egg Harbor Township..\..plans to spend up to $10m to buy and raze a stretch of shabby $30-a-night motels along Route 40, replacing them with a big hotel, and office building or both.
   [Meanwhile, unspecified jobs lost.]
   Built mostly in the 1950's, the roadside motels - with names like Sea Breeze, Hi Ho and Santa Maria - have increasingly become home to prostitution and illegal drug use....
   [As we said, unspecified jobs lost. If we used our worksaving technology properly to create secure leisure instead of anxious unemployment, making earning an honest living easier than earning a dishonest one, we'd have fewer 'improper' livelihoods anyway. As it is, we've taken all the advantages of technology, turned them into money and funneled it to as few people as possible, chanting about the sacredness of incentive, as if your second million dollars acts as any appreciable incentive, let alone your second billion, let alone Bill Gates's 65th billion.]

1. More signs of trouble for Ireland's technology boom, by Brian Lavery, NYT, W1.
   ...[Yester]day Tellabs, the American telecommunications equipment manufacturer, said that it would close its plant in Drogheda, with the loss of 200 jobs, as part of a plan to cut 1,000 jobs worldwide, or 12% of its workforce..\..
   [That means the whole workforce is 8333, and this will cut it to 8333-1000= 7333. But back on 4/19, #4 we had a 6% layoff of 550, betraying a total workforce of 9166. Now 9166-550= 8616, so we still have to lose an intervening 8616-8333= 283 jobs to get to the starting gate for the present round of layoffs. At any rate, with about 9166 jobs at the beginning of April and only 7333 after the present bloodbath, we've got to count a total of 1833 jobcuts somehow, and since we only counted 550 in April, that means we've got to count 1833-550= 1,283 now, comprised of our current 1000 and the unannounced intervening 283. Now, what percentage of what would that be? Hmm, of 8616, what percentage is 1283? 15%.]
   Tellabs\' plant closure\ comes amid a number of recent cutbacks by technology companies in Ireland \such as\ Baltimore Technologies... General Semiconductor... Gateway....

2. More signs of trouble for Ireland's technology boom, by Brian Lavery, NYT, W1.
   DUBLIN...- Baltimore Technologies, the security hardware developer that was once the darling of Ireland's nascent technology industry, said [yester]day that it would halve its workforce, delist from the Nasdaq stock market and sell nonessential businesses.... Most of the 220 positions that Baltimore cut...are in Britain; about 400 more will be shed as noncore interests are sold.
   [So 220+400= 620 jobcuts announced.]
   ...Only 30 employees in Dublin will lose their jobs.... Baltimore reported a Q2 loss of $691m [yester]day, writing off more than $500m worth of major acquisitions as a loss..\.. Baltimore's retrenchment, after a dizzying decline this year, comes amid a number of recent cutbacks by technology companies in Ireland....
   [Again the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]
   Its loss before taxes and before one-time items was $33.3m - more than four times what the company lost in the period last year....

3. Laid-off immigrants to protest shortage of training programs, by Diane Lewis, BG, E1.
   ...Power-One International...a large manufacturer of power supply equipment, announced plans in May to move jobs from its Allston facility to Mexico and China, and to lay off 300 factory workers, including 200 who speak little or no English....
   [The Boston Globe seems not to have announced this job "move" in May, so we'll count it now.]

4. Nursing home shuts down after U.S. finding of danger, by Katherine Finkelstein, NYT, A17.
   Nearly a month ago, federal inspectors visited a Westchester nursing home and quickly determined that the residents were in "immediate jeopardy" because of medical neglect, stifling heat and unsafe conditions. The inspectors threatened to end government payments to the home, the Chandler Care Center at 31 Overton Road in Ossining, unless the owner, Samule Klein, submitted a detailed plan to correct the problems. Mr. Klein, a real estate developer from Greenwich, Conn., chose instead to close the home days later....
   [Unspecified lost jobs.]

1. AOL Time Warner will cut more jobs, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The world's largest Internet and media company said yesterday that it would cut more than 1,200 jobs at America Online, its Internet unit.... The unit, which employs about 16,000 people, also said it would eliminate another 500 jobs as part of an alliance between its Netscape division and Sun Microsystems Inc....
   [So now we don't even need a takeover to produce jobcuts, we're getting them from mere alliances. The total here then is 1200+500= 1,700 jobcuts, reflected in today's BG version of the story "AOL Time Warner says it will cut 1,700 jobs" (F2). However, we already counted 1000 of these as "future cuts" back on 8/14, so now we'll only count 1700-1000= 700.]
   In January, the company cut 2,400 jobs in several areas, including its 24-hour news network CNN, its publishing unit that houses People and Time magazines, and its film units, including New Line Cinema.
   [Only 2,000 Jan. cuts were mentioned on 1/24, #2, but we counted the other 400 on 8/14.]
   The company, which employs a total of about 90,000 people, also said this summer it would close its Warner Brothers Studio Stores by October, cutting 3,800 jobs....
   [This 3800 looks suspiciously like the 3800 we counted on 8/16, but the wording then seemed to assign them to the first and second quarters of this year, and the present 3800 cut seems to be assigned to the third and fourth quarters, so we'll take a flyer and count these as separate. So this story gives us a total of 700+3800= 4,500 jobcuts to count now.]

2. Steelcase may trim up to 1,100 jobs, Bloomberg via BG, F2.
   [Today's NYT carries this same story in fuzzier form, "Steelcase says earnings will miss estimates" C4.]
   ...The largest US office-furniture maker...will eliminate up to 1,100 jobs, about a 5% reduction, as businesses cut staffs and need fewer desks, chairs and filing cabinets. The 20,000-employee company will fire 300-400 salaried workers and lay off 600-700 hourly employees in North America in the next three months.... Steelcase said in February [see 2/13, #2] it was firing up to 1,200 workers and closing two factories.
   Sales and profits at furniture makers including Steelcase have fallen as computer-related companies have shed thousands of jobs, and dozens of Internet-based companies have failed.... "It's definitely the lagging economy that's causing customers to cancel orders and postpone purchasing decisions"..\..spokeswoman Jeanine Hill said.... "The end result is, we don't have the sales."
   Most of the jobs to be eliminated are in the company's Grand Rapids, Mich., headquarters and plants, Hill said. The factories closed after February's announcement are in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Solon, Ohio, she said. Steelcase operates 50 plants worldwide.... Steelcase's order backlog began to drop in January, Hill said, confirming an industry forecast of declining shipments.
   [This at a time when French manufacturers are complaining about their big backlogs of orders (see 8/04) - thanks to their slightly more modern 35-hour workweek that prevents the wasting of so many consumers to poverty and underemployment that we have here.]
   Other furniture makers such as Herman Miller Inc. and La-Z-Boy Inc. also are struggling with falling sales that have shrunk profit.

3. Component maker cuts jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Hutchinson Technology Inc., a maker of computer disk-drive parts...based in Hutchinson, Minn. \will\ lay off up to 600 employees or 15% of its workforce to cut costs....

4. Parlex details cuts, Bloomberg via BG, F9.
   ...A Methuen MA maker of flexible circuits...cut about 330 jobs or 17% of its workforce to reduce costs amid falling demand and a fiscal fourth-quarter loss [of $1.2m], Parlex CFO Robert Rieth said. Jobs were eliminated at operations worldwide, although the biggest cuts were in the U.S. and Mexico.... Revenue fell 31%...from...a year ago.

5. Be Free to cut jobs; cofounder quits, Bloomberg via BG, F9.
   ...A provider of Internet marketing services...will cut about 55 jobs or 25% of its workforce as it focuses on a smaller number of large customers....
   [Same brilliant strategy again and again - focus on the rich, cuz they're the only ones with money.]
   Be Free, of Marlborough MA, cut 50 jobs in April.... [see 4/26, #3]

6. Hearst shuts down magazine, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C7.
   The weak advertising [sector] has claimed another victim, as Hearst Magazines is closing Classic American Home....
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]
   The circulation...stood at 521,000, ranking it among the smallest of Hearst's publications; the circulation rate base guaranteed to advertisers was 500,000. ...Ad pages...for the first four issues of 2001 totaled 113, down 6.8% from the comparable period of 2000. The July-August magazine, now on newsstands, is the final issue....
   [Rush right out and get this collectible!]

7. Hearst shuts down magazine, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C7.
   ...Classic American Home was the third magazine to announce a closing in the last week, along with The Industry Standard [8/17 below] and Working Woman....
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]

8. Hearst shuts down magazine, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C7.
   ...Other recent closings include Family PC...
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]
   ...and Individual Investor [see 7/10, #8].
   

1. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. cuts to total 8,000 jobs, Bloomberg via BG, D2.
   ...The number two US bank..\..plans to cut about 8,000 jobs [8%], more than [its] previous forecast, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing unidentified sources. In July, CFO Dina Dublon said the cuts would number significantly more that the 5,000 estimated earlier this year but wouldn't exceed 10,000. ...The firm [was] created by Chase Manhattan Corp.'s $32B purchase of J.P. Morgan & Co. NYC-based J.P. Morgan Chase employed 97,224 people at the end of June. Its shares fell....
   [The only thing the NYT or BG picked up before during this year was on 4/19, #6 with unspecified jobcuts.]

2. Agilent Technologies to cut 4,000 jobs, AP via NYT, C6.
   The equipment maker...reported a Q3 loss yesterday and said that it would cut...about 9% of its workforce. The move follows a decision in April to cut employee pay by 10%.
   "This is by far the worst industry downturn I've seen in my 34 years with the company," CEO Ned Barnholt said. Agilent, which was spun off from HP in 1999, reported a net loss of $219m in the quarter, in contrast to a profit of $155m a year ago. Revenue fell 23%. Agilent shares fell....

   • [Again, we need to add to a downsizing counted yesterday, hence the unnumbered bullet.]
   Fujitsu, facing new losses, to cut 10% of work force, by Miki Tanikawa, NYT, W1.
   TOKYO - ...One of Japan's leading makers of personal computers, semiconductors and communications equipment..\..said [yester]day that it would eliminate 16,400 jobs...as it struggles with the slump in technology spending....
   [We counted 15,000 and the downsizing itself yesterday, so today we just have to count the additional (16,400-15,000=) 1,400 jobcuts.]
   Fujitsu's...downsizing in Japan will come largely through attrition and the dismissal of part-time workers.... "A new growth strategy is needed, and we must implement a restructuring to that end," Naoyuki Akikusa, Fujitsu's president, said at a news conference.
   [If he really wanted a new growth strategy, he'd stop shrinking his company and his workforce and merely shrink his worktime and his workweek. After all, his employees are his best customers. Or were, when they had jobs.]
   Most of the job reductions will come from overseas operations; 11,400 jobs will be eliminated overseas overall, with nearly 3,000 to be cut in North America, according to AP. ...Fujitsu has several plants in the U.S. [and Canada, or they would have said U.S. up front instead of North America].
   The deepest cuts will be felt in East Asia: more than 4,000 jobs will disappear at plants in Thailand and the Philippines as a result of the decision to end production of hard disk drives.... "The restructuring smacks of an emergency evacuation," said Hiroshi Yoshihara, an analyst with Nikko Salomon Smith Barney in Tokyo. "It's easier to sack workers abroad."...

3. A growth industry cools as New York [state] prisons thin, by David Rohde, NYT, front page.
   With the number of inmates in state prisons across the country either stabilizing or dropping after decades of explosive growth, New York is taking early steps to reduce its prison staffing significantly. The Dept. of Correctional Services has frozen hiring at 36 prisons across the state, and hopes to eliminate 614 prison jobs through attrition by March....

4. Korn/Ferry says it will lay off 20% of its staff, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...A leading executive-search firm plans to lay off 500 employees...and said it had a quarterly loss as companies added fewer managers.
   [Huh? Oh yeah, it's a management search firm.]
   ...Revenue fell 34% to about $114m in the quarter ended July 31. The CEO, Paul Reilly, said fees dropped as companies reduced executive ranks. Korn/Ferry earns [or at least charges] a fee of 30% of a year's salary for each executive placed. Korn/Ferry said is would take charges related to the jobcuts and [to] combining computer and human resources operations....
   [Again, combine computer and HR operations and you need fewer humans (unless you cut worktime, not headcount) because computers don't buy products and services.]

5. UMass Memorial fires 200 workers, by Liz Kowalczk, NYT, D11.
   UMass Memorial Health Care yesterday laid off...employees, including nurses, respiratory technicians, secretaries and rehab workers at its Worcester teaching hospital. The hospital, which trains students from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is strugging to recover from a $49m operating loss last year.... Executives expect to lay off [a total of?] 500 employees from a staff of 8,500. About 20% of the employees laid off yesterday will be offered other positions, hospital officials said.

6. Software consultant Keane set to buy Va. rival - 180 layoffs expected amid $136m stock deal by Ross Kerber, BG, D1.
   ...Keane Inc. is set to announce today an agreement to buy...Metro Information Services of Virginia.... Keane nonetheless plans to eliminate about 180 jobs, including many support roles at Metro's Virginia Beach headquarters, upon the deal's closing. Keane now has about 7,000 employees; Metro has about 2,000.... Along with competitors like EDS and Accenture in a market sometimes knows as "application outsourcing," Keane often takes over its customers' information technology departments, writing and supporting softrware..\.. The deal comes amid a fallout in technology spending and a resulting round of consolidation among consulting companies....
   [Instead of practicing consolidation in a downturn with downsizing and making matters worse, companies should be "confluidating" with timesizing and making matters better. The more consolidation, the less spending. The more confluidation, the more spending.]

7. Interpublic unit makes personnel shifts, by Stuart Elliott, NYT, C8.
   Changes are being made as TN Media, the media buying agency of True North Communications, is folded into Initiative Media Worldwide, a division of the Partnership unit of the Interpublic Group of Cos.... 89 employees who had worked for TN Media in North America are being dismissed.... In addition, 151 former TN Media employees are being shifted to Initiative Media North America, which is dismissing about 80 of its own employees. The changes leave Initiative Media North America with about 1,600 employees....
   [So a total of 89+80= 169 jobcuts.]

8. Engage, software concern, lays off 100 workers, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...An interactive marketing and software company...warned that 125 more jobs could be cut if it cannot find a buyer for its online advertising business. The layoffs amounted to 18.5% of its workforce.... In January [1/05], the company, based in Andover, Mass., announced it would 550 jobs as part of a restructuring effort. It now has 540 employees [before these 100 additional jobcuts].

9. Equipment maker plans to close, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C6.
   Triton Network Systems Inc., a manufacturer of high-speed wireless networking equipment...decided to close the company and sell its assets, pending shareholder approval. Triton, based in Orlando, Fla., cited its financial struggles and its ability to find a merger or buyout partner....
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]

• Report: Fujitsu to fire 15,000 - Also plans to close overseas plants, Reuters via Boston Globe, C6.
  TOKYO - ...Japan's biggest flash memory chip maker..\..will slash its worldwide workforce by...nearly 10%...in response to the high-tech slump...the Nihon Keizal Shimbun business daily..\..said yesterday....without citing sources.... Fujitsu will slash the jobs by next March, the paper said, while Kyodo news agency said the plant closures will take place by March 2004.... The company, which reported a group operating loss of 42.3B yen [$352m] in the April-June quarter, will consolidate its domestic and overseas plants for computers and telecommunications products, the newspaper said [which newspaper?].
  Manufacturing plants in North America and the rest of Asia are expected to bear the brunt of the overhaul, with only 3,000 workers at home expected to lose their jobs, it said. An early retirement system introduced last month will be used at home, Kyodo reported, citing company officials.... Fujitsu will shift several thousand production workers to software and services divisions and create a task force to promote global corporate alliances and buyouts in these fields, it said.
  Fujitsu's announcement would come in the wake of flagging worldwide PC sales and a focus at PC makers on managing costs, including through deep job cuts. Fujitsu last month announced a four-week summer suspension in output of some its flash memory chips, which are mainly used in mobile phones - one of the hardest-hit sectors in this year's info-tech slump. It also said it would sharply cut flash memory chip production at its US facility in Oregon, its only remaining overseas semiconductor plant.
  Analysts expect Fujitsu's once hugely profitable flash memory business to do little more than break even in the current business year. The software and service segment, Fujitsu's stronghold, is also suffering from slow demand at home because debt-ridden Japanese banks are cautious about lending to companies for spending on information technology, analysts said....

1. Accenture plans to eliminate 1,500 positions, by Jonathan Glater, NYT, B4.
   ...The consulting firm that recently changed its name from Andersen Consulting [will] lay off...2% of [its] staff of 75,000..\..including 1,000 consultants, because of the weak economy and the low rate of employee turnover.
   [Well here's a great cure for employee loyalty - mass firing! If Andersen was really smart enough to presume to sell advice, they'd know how to adjust to changing market conditions without demoralizing their own - even if they had to peek over at and borrow ideas from Nucor and Lincoln Electric. They do have a glimmer of the idea -]
   Accenture also [will] expand to Europe and Asia its sabbatical program, which pays consultants 20% of their salary and maintains their benefits for 6-12 months if they take a leave from the company.
   [But 20% may not be much to live on, and wouldn't it be simpler, less dramatic/traumatic and more galvanizing to just trim the workweek 2% for the whole company and prorate pay?!]
   The company also [will] defer starting dates for up to 1,000 incoming consultants....
   [Oh, that's nice. Firing 1,000 and hiring 1,000 different ones - after making them wait. Andersen has really deteriorated. They don't have the common sense of a 2x4.]

2. Ireland: Plant closing, by Brian Lavery, NYT, B3.
   An American circuit-board manufacturer, General Semiconductor, announed the closing of its Irish plant in County Cork, with the loss of 670 jobs, citing a downturn in demand for its products. The deputy prime minister, Mary Harney, pledged to find a new employer for the predominantly agricultural region, where General Semi operated for 20 years.
   [Don't strain yourself, Mary. Many of us like unindustrialized agricultural regions, and if people need work, cut the strain&hype and just share the limited work that's there via a reduced workweek for all.]
   Since January, 4,300 people have lost jobs at high-tech employers sponsored by the Irish government.
   ["Sponsored"?! What an imposition on taxpayers and the rest of the EU.]

   • [We need to add to the count of a downsizing yesterday, hence the unnumbered bullet.]
   Ford to curtail auto production and cut 5,000 jobs - Salaried staff reduced - Economists say industry now shows signs of becoming drag on U.S. economy, by Keith Bradsher, NYT, front page.
   [What a mean statement. As if the hemorrhaging auto industry is to blame for the current economic downturn and not economists themselves and the giant blind eye they turn to the central issue of the maximum workweek; that it, the share per person of the nation's most critical vanishing resource, natural market-demanded employment as labor-saving technology pours in and our 61-year-old workweek remains frozen and unenforced. The statement in the text is less mean and more realistic -]
   ...the latest signs that the auto industry may no longer be able to prop up the stumbling American economy....
   [But then we read a statement that integrates both sentiments -]
   Economists said [yester]day that the auto industry, rather than pulling the American economy along, is turning into a brake on growth that could help drag it into a recession. "Sales and ultimately production are going to go down another notch, and...it might be another weight on the economy that's just too much for the economy to bear," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Economy.com, a consulting firm in West Chester, Pa....
   [Check out *their website. Not a breath about workweek issues. This has gotta be the most remarkable human blindspot since the "unsinkable" Titanic. At any rate, we split the diff between the estimates of 4000-5000 cuts and just counted 4,500 yesterday (#1), so we'll just count the remaining 500 lost jobs today.]

3. Sourthern Union offers early-retirement programs, Dow Jones via NYT, B4.
   The...energy \distributor\ has offered voluntary early-retirement programs to about 400 workers at its operating divisions, as part of a corporate reorganization and restructuring aimed at increasing cash flow and earnings. The company, which is based in Austin, Tex...also offered severance packages to 48 corporate employees....
   [So, a total of 448 "offers," and as is our wont, we'll assume that the company is counting on roughly 50% being accepted, equivalent to a downsizing of (448x50%=) 224 jobcuts.]

4. Certicom plans job cuts, Bloomberg via NYT, B2.
   HAYWARD, Calif. - ...A maker of security software [plans] to cut about 70 employees, or one-quarter of its staff, to trim costs...as customers spend less in a weak economy..\.. It was the second round of layoffs at the company in less than three months.... On June 4, Certicom said it would dismiss 30% of its workers..\.. The latest cuts will leave the company with about 200 employees by the end of October....
   [That means the company has (200+70=) 270 employees before this second round of layoffs and {270/(100%-30)x100=} 386 employees before the first round, meaning the first round carried off (386-270=) 116 jobs. But neither the NY Times nor the Boston Globe picked up the story on June 4, so we now count both rounds comprising 116+70= 186 jobcuts (186/386x100%=) 48% of total workforce.]

5. Agere Systems Inc., NYT, B4.
   ...Allentown, Pa., the chip-making unit Lucent Technologies Inc. plans to spin off [see 12/06/2000, item #1:2], will close offices in Berkeley Heights, NJ, and move 275 jobs to its Allentown headquarters.
   [Well, lookin' at the map, Allentown is about 55 miles west of Berkeley Heights as the crow flies; probably 60-65 mi. down and along undulating Interstate 78. But it's just 12-15 miles to Newark. We'll guess that this episode of jerking around will be the equivalent of about a 50% layoff, and count 137 employees adrift. Hey, a one-hour commuting difference today in employee-dissing USA is better that coast to coast.]

6. Walking magazine shuts, by Isaac Baker, BG, C1.
   ...A Boston-based lifestyle magazine has been shut down by parent company Reader's Digest.... Nine employees in the publisher's Bromfield Street offices are out of work....

1. Ford reportedly to cut up to 5,000 jobs, by Ed Garsten, BG, C2.
   [We'll focus on the BG story because it's later-to-press and more surely worded than the NYT version, "Auto slump pushes Ford to weigh cuts in work force," by Keith Bradsher, NYT, C1. See tomorrow's corroboration on the 5,000 figure, item #4.]
   DETROIT - Ford Motor Co. plans to slash between 4,000 and 5,000 white-collar jobs in North America - about 10% of its domestic workforce, AP has learned.
   [We'll split the diff and call it 4,500 jobcuts.]
   "We've become much more efficient and the jobs are not needed anymore," a high-ranking Ford executive said early today....
   [Sounds great, but he would he add the statement, "and the markets are not needed anymore"? These morons think their markets come out of thin air and their wiping out people's income will have no effect on their future. Their moronicity goes right back to their boss, Henry Ford, who said in the late 1930s after showing labor leader Walter Reuther around a newly mechanized car plant, "Let's see you unionize these robots!", to which Reuther replied prophetically, "Let's see you sell them cars." And sure enough, the "high-ranking Ford executive," who clearly can't put two and two together, went on to say -]
   "It's an incredibly competitive market and the economy has slowed."...
   [So apparently they are still not completely independent of markets, of people to actually buy the products they are spewing out in such profusion, as we all thought dot-coms were last year (but they weren't - independent of markets).]
   The source says he expects the job cuts to be completed by December. The automaker will be offering "very good packages" to longtime employees, the source said....
   [The NYT version gives the impression that the whole thing is an early-retirement program -]
   DETROIT... - Alarmed by the slowing economy and a slumping market share, executives of Ford Motor have approved an early-retirement program for up to 10% of its white-collar employees in the U.S., or 4,600 workers, people close to the company said today....

2. Ames to close 47 stores and lay off 2,000 workers, Reuters via NYT, C3.
   Ames Department Stores [will] lay off...6% of its workforce, the second time the company has shut stores because of the slowing economy.... The company operates more than 400 stores and employs 35,300 people. In November, Ames...which is based in Rocky Hill, Conn..\..announced plans to close 32 stores and cut about 2,000 jobs. Shares...fell....

3. Philips to quit making VCR's, Dow Jones via NYT, C4.
   Royal Philips Electronics...will "refocus" its video activities by having another manufacturer...Funal Electric of Japan..\..make videocassette recorders for the European market. ...The shift [will] result in the elimination of 850 to 1,000 jobs by the middle of next year. The jobs affected are in Vienna and are part of a larger program to cut 1,200 jobs in that city....

4. Wabash National to close 2 plants and cut 900 jobs, Reuters via NYT, C3.
   ...One of the nation's largest makers of truck trailers [will] close trailer assembly plants in Iowa and Tennessee and a parts distribution center in Calif..\..and cut its workforce by 18% because poor market conditions showed no signs of improvement....

5. Industry Standard says it will cease publication, by Barringer & Kuczynski, NYT, C1.
   ...The magazine's parent company, Standard Media International, is expected to file for Chapter 11...soon....
   Word began to spread earlier this week among the handful of employees who were not taking a company-required vacation, and executives scrambled to reach the rest of the 200 or so remaining employees. In its heyday a little more than a year ago, the company, based in San Francisco, employed about 400 people, including 130 journalists.... But advertising declined 75% in the first half of this year, and the magazine was on track to lose $50m on revenue of $40m....
   [Previously this year, 36 were laid off on 1/09, #5 and 69 on 2/22, #5, and the 2/22 story still places the total workforce at 400 before the 69 cuts. We're going to be more conservative and place it at 400 before 1/09's 36 cuts. But that means here we must count not only the now-remaining 200 employees, but the 200 already cut this year, minus those we have already counted (36+69= 105), so, 95. So here we'll count 200+95= 295 jobcuts (100%).]

6. Remaining offices of Bozell are closing, by Bill Carter, NYT, C2.
   The remaining offices of Bozell Kamstra are being closed.... Adweek this week \reported\ that the Minneapolis office was closing.... Four accounts at the Minneapolis agency...will move to Carmichael Lynch.... Carmichael [will] determine how many of the 60 employees at Bozell Minneapolis would move to Carmichael. The Bozell Kamstra office in Austin, Tex., is closing and the Ft. Lauderdale office has closed.
   [We'll count all 60 employees at Bozell Minneapolis as jobs lost, plus unspecified jobs lost in Austin and Ft. Lauderdale.]

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