Timesizing® Associates - HOMEPAGE

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

9/29/2001  4 downsizings, totaling 5,400 jobcuts + unspecified, reported in (NYT) NY Times and (BG) Boston Globe -

1. Mandalay, casino concern, sees income decline, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   The Mandalay Resort Group...based in Las Vegas..\..owner of the Luxor [the big pyramid] and Circus Circus casinos, said...that it would cut 15% of its Nevada staff, or 4,300 people.... Mandalay gets about 70% of its cash flow from its Las Vegas casinos, which also include the Mandalay Bay.  Travel to Las Vegas, where half the visitors come by air, has fallen as conventions and meetings are canceled after this month's terrorist attacks and tourists cut back on travel.

2. Praxair to cut about 900 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C14.
   DANBURY, Conn... A leading producer of industrial gas [will] miss fourth-quarter profit forecasts.... The company, based here, expected a decline in commercial aircraft engine production and servicing "as a result of recent events."...
   It cut 325 jobs, or 11%, of its Surface Technology unit, which accounts for about 5% of revenue.... Praxair, which has about 23,500 employees worldwide, is also eliminating 125 jobs in Brazil and 400 in other United States units....
   [With 50 unaccounted for to make up the 900.]

3. 2 production lines to close; weaker outlook is cited, AP via NYT, C4.
   Weyerhaeuser...based in Federal Way, Wash. \will\ permanently close two production lines, which employ about 200 people....

4. Cendant, hotel owner, lowers projection on income, AP via NYT, C4.
   The...owner of Days Inn and Super 8 hotels and Avis rental cars...based in New York \and\ blaming the effect that the terrorist attacks were having on the travel industry...vowed to reduce costs sharply to adjust for the downturn in business, including an unspecified number of job cuts at its car rental business....
   [20/20 hindsight - turns out to be 6000 jobcuts, per 11/16/2001 #1.]

5. Click here for today's negative-4500 jobcuts by Northwest and Continental Airlines - 9/29/2001, #1.

1. Brussels: Cuts at AGFA, by Paul Meller, NYT, W1.
   Europe's largest maker of photographic and industrial film, Agfa-Gevaert, said it might have to cut up to 4,000 jobs, or 18% of its work force, in a bid to restructure....
   [Bizspeak for "will have to."]

2. Nissan to create 2,000 jobs in Tennessee expansion, AP via NYT, C4.
   [Sounds good, no? but look closely at the first line -]
   The Nissan Motor Co. will move its Maxima production line to Tennessee from Japan....
   [Estimated Japanese job loss = 2,000 cuts. Net global loss = 0 (see our UPsizings today, 9/28). Any net anything? Well, at least the environment will benefit from having these cars manufactured closer to where they'll be sold.]

3. Milacron says it expects a loss and will cut 750 jobs, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   ...The plastics and metal-working company warned yesterday...it would cut...jobs because of continued weak demand.... Milacron said it planned to...reduce its North American and European work force by 10%. About 350 jobs will be eliminated in North America and 400 jobs in Europe.

4. Online travel cuts, Bloomberg via BG, C2.
   LowestFare.com, a [Las Vegas-based] Internet travel company owned by financier Carl Icahn, stopped selling airline tickets for US flights after cutting...jobs because of slow bookings after the terrorist attacks.... On Tuesday LowestFare.com...eliminated 460 jobs, 58% of its 800-member staff. The company also closed its Ft. Lauderdale office....

5. Exelon reduces profit forecast; 450 jobs to be cut, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...The electricity giant created by the merger last October of Peco Energy of Philadelphia and Unicom of Chicago..\..because of the weakening economy...will eliminate 450 jobs...in addition to 2,000 announced with last year's merger.

6. New World Pasta, NYT, C4.
   ...Harrisburg, Pa., maker of the Ronzoni and San Giorgio brands of pasta, [will] close its plant in Omaha by March 31 and eliminate 92 jobs. Two weeks ago, the company said it would close a plant in Lebanon, Pa., and eliminate 135 jobs.
   [which the NYT did not pick up then, so we'll count them now, a total of 92+135= 227 lost jobs.]

1. Delta announces job cuts and reductions in service, by Sherri Day, NYT, C6.
   In the latest blow to the ailing airline industry..., Delta Air Lines...the nation's third-largest carrier \will\ cut up to 13,000 jobs worldwide and reduce its flight schedule by 15% because of a plunge in the demand for air travel....
   [From the Boston Globe version, "Another 25,000 jobs cut nationwide," by Scott Nelson, BG, C2, we learn, "Delta [will] cut up to 13,000 or 16% of its workforce." Here's "The Rrrrest of the Story" in Nov. -]
   About 11,000 Delta employees agree to leave company, AP via 11/01/2001 NYT, C4.
   ...through early retirement or voluntary leave programs, meaning the company will lay off only 2,000 people.... The nation's third-largest airline is eliminating 13,000 jobs as part of an effort to reduce its operations because of dramatically less traffic after the Sept. 11 attacks. About 4,200 employees chose to retire early, many lured by a company offer to add five years to their service records for better pension benefits....

2. Canada: Airline cuts, by Bernard Simon, NYT, W1.
   Air Canada [will] lay off 5,000 workers and reduce its fleet by 84 aircraft in response to a drop in traffic. The carrier, which accounts for about 80% of Canada's air traffic, was already cutting 4,000 jobs after its takeover of Canadian Airlines [nee Canadian Pacific Air - see 8/02/2001 #1].
   [See also 3,500 cuts on 2/2/2001 #3 and 2,000 cuts on 9/23/2000 2, for a grand total since Aug/2000 of 5000+4000+3500+2000= 14,500 cuts, which makes the following story rather strange -]
   Air Canada to sell parts of its operations, by Bernard Simon, 2/07/2003 NYT, W7.
   ...Air Canada has already cut its workforce by about 11% [= 4,444] from a peak of 40,400 employees in Aug/2000.
   [Sumpin fishy here. It's unlikely that they would have hired over 10,000 new employees over this period tho' that would make these figures come out right. We'll just leave our count the way it is.]

3. Delta announces job cuts and reductions in service, by Sherri Day, NYT, C6.
   ...The airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs [will] lay off 4,800 of its 16,000 employees....
   [Don't they mean "MSG"?]

4. Canada: Cuts at Bombardier, by Bernard Simon, NYT, W1.
   The aerospace and transportation equipment group...based in Montreal \is\ cutting production of regional and corporate aircraft, reflecting lower demand.... About 3,800 workers will be laid off in Canada, the U.S. and Britain....

5. Textron, aircraft maker, lowers forecast, AP via NYT, C7.
   ...[A maker of] Cessna single-engine aircraft and Bell commercial helicopters [will] cut 2,500 more jobs. Earlier this year, Textron said it would cut about 5,000 jobs from its worldwide workforce of about 68,000. The chairman, Lewis B. Campbell, said a slowdown in the economy and the events after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have affected business. He said a restructuring plan was necessary to reduce inventory to meet lower demand....

6. Lucent to eliminate 900 more jobs, by Peter Howe, BG, C1.
   Continuing a wave of cutbacks at its landmark North Andover MA telecommunications plant, Lucent Technologies said yesterday it is aiming to eliminate another 900 of the 3,700 remaining jobs there through a package of enhanced severance benefits.
   Depending on how many Lucent workers agree by Oct. 9 to take the voluntary deal, which in some cases would net workers mroe than $100,000 in added severance pay plus a pension and health benefits, Lucent would then impose "involuntary" layoffs.... The new round of cuts affects only unionized production workers, not managers and engineers....

7. South Korea: Airline cutbacks, by Don Kirk, NYT, W1.
   The South Korean carrier Asiana Airlines [is] cutting 3 of its 14 weekly flights to Los Angeles beginning Oct. 8,...eliminating several flights in Korea [and] cutting 360 jobs or 5.3% of its 8,000-member workforce.

8. CBOT fires 51, Bloomberg via BG, C2.
   The Chicago Board of Trade has fired...about 7% of its workforce, as the second-largest US derivatives exchange reduces costs after years of losses.... The 153-year-old exchange...now has fewer than 700 full- and part-time employees, compared with more than 950 in 1999. Jobs at the CBOT have been cut as new managers converted the member-owned exchange to a for-profit company....
   [We like to see the derivatives business shrivel. Derivatives are just too clever and risky for survival. Sort of like single-stock futures and other bucket-shop concepts. A bad idea from the gitgo.]

1. New cutbacks at international airlines, NYT, W1.
   ...Alitalia, the dominant airline in Italy and one of Europe's largest, said yesterday that it planned to eliminate 2,500 jobs, or 11% of its workforce, ground 15 planes and reduce its flight schedule to Asia, South America and the United States because of a sharp falloff in demand.... Another 1,500 jobs might be cut if conditions do not stop deteriorating, the company said....
   [The also-mentioned 1400 "already announced" layoffs for Sabena are probably the same as the 1600 we counted on 8/10, #2.]

2. Advanced Micro cuts 2,300 jobs, by Chris Gaither, NYT, C2.
   Advanced Micro Devices [will] close two semiconductor-fabrication plants in Austin, Tex. and eliminate a total of...15% of its global workforce. The company, based in Sunnyvale [now Gloomyvale], Calif., [will] take a Q3 charge of as much as $110m to cover the costs of the cuts, which it said were expected to save $125m a year in operating costs....

3. Disaster's aftershocks: Number of workers out of a job is rising, by Pristin and Eaton, NYT, B8.
   ...About 600 members of Local 6 of the Hotel & Restaurant Workers were laid off before the attacks, and 1,200 more have been let go since, said John Turchiano, a union spokesman....
   [At the risk of some double-counting if, for example, the 25 layoffees from the City Hall Restaurant in #9 below were members of this union local, we have here a total of 600+1200= 1,800 layoffs.]

4. 750 more jobs cut, AP via BG, C2.
   Rockwell Automation Inc. will cut...jobs in addition to about 1,300 announced earlier [sic]. The Milwaukee company said the latest cuts amount to 3.2% of its 23,500 employees....
   [We only caught 1,000 (on 6/08) of those previously announced cuts, so we have now to count 300+750= 1,050 lost jobs.]

5. American Standard cuts 1,000 jobs and trims forecast, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
   ...The maker of...faucets and toilets..\..said falling sales of some cooling systems were dragging profit below forecasts and had resulted in...job cuts at \its\ Trane air-conditioning systems...unit....

6. Australia: Job cuts at retailer, by Becky Gaylord, NYT, W1.
   Australia's largest retailer, Coles Myer Ltd., will lay off 1,000 workers as part of a large-scale plan to cut costs and improve earnings.... The company takes in 20 cents of every retail dollar spent in Australia.
   [But now they've fueled the cycle of contraction, there'll be fewer retail dollars spent. Brilliant.]

7. Bankruptcy fears fuel drop at Exodus Communications, by Simon Romero, NYT, C2.
   ...Exodus may also be planning to cut more jobs as part of a restructuring plan, a person close to the company said.
   [An exodus from Exodus?]
   Exodus has already reduced its work force to 4,000 from 4,500...
   [We caught 675 jobcuts on 5/10, #2, which were billed as 15% of total workforce. That would indeed put the total at 4,500 but would reduce the remainder to 3,825, not 4,000 as claimed here.]
   ...and may be preparing to cut an additional 500-1,000 jobs.
   [Well, in accordance with our latest procedures (we count'em as soon as we see'em in case we never see'em again, we count the max instead of splitting the diff, and we deduct as well as add if and when we get better information), we'll count all 1,000 minus the already-counted, now-disavowed 675-500= 175, giving us 1000-175= 825 jobcuts to count for Exodus now, taking their workforce down from 3825 to 3000 (or rounded 4000 to 3000).]

8. Deep cuts at Excite, by Saul Hansell, NYT, C2.
   The At Home Corp., the beleaguered high-speed Internet access and Internet portal company, said that it would eliminate 500 jobs, or 27% of its work force, scaling back much of its remaining business tied to advertising. The company, which does business as Excite@Home, will close its MatchLogic division, a unit focused on Internet advertising and e-mail marketing. MatchLogic, based in Westminster, Colo., employed 200 people. It will also eliminate 300 employees working on the Excite portal.... At Home, which is controlled by AT&T...does not have enough cash to remain in business.

9. Disaster's aftershocks: Number of workers out of a job is rising, by Pristin and Eaton, NYT, B8.
   ...At City Hall [Restaurant],...a 3-year-old restaurant on Duane Street, Henry Archer Meer, the chef and owner...reduced his staff of 115 employees by 25, and was doing without 15 of his 22 waiters by operating one shift instead of two.

10. Disaster's aftershocks: Number of workers out of a job is rising, by Pristin and Eaton, NYT, B8.
    ...The tourism drought has also hurt companies that transport people to airports. "The day they destroyed the World Trade Center, they destroyed our business," said Steven P. Ellis, the sales director of XYZ 2-Way Radio Service, a car service based in Park Slope, Brooklyn. XYZ drivers are independent contractors, who own their Lincoln Town Cars. Mr. Ellis said that at least 25 of the 425 drivers had decided to search for other work....

11. Restaurants close, AP via BG, C9.
    Newport Creamery said 19 restaurants in RI [9], Conn. [6], and Mass. [4] are closing, in the latest attempt to save the bankrupt company. ...[So far] 15 workers at its Middletown headquarters have been laid off. The [targeted] stores began closing last week; the final 11 were due to close last night. Twelve restaurants remain open in...RI [10, and] Mass. [2].
    [So, 15 plus unspecified jobcuts.]

12. A Cantor move?, Bloomberg via BG, C2.
    Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond trader that lost over 730 employees in the attack on the World Trade Center, told the five survivors in its corporate bond group it will move the department to London....
    [We count that big a move as a virtual downsizing, especially when the tone is peremptory, as here. It didn't ask these traumatized people; it told them.]

1. Honeywell, raising figure, says it will cut 15,800 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
   Honeywell International Inc...raised the number of jobs it would eliminate this year to 15,800, or 13% of its workforce, because of the turmoil in the airline industry.... Honeywell had projected last week [see 9/19, #3 below] that more than 12,000 jobs would be cut.
   [So we're talking about an additional 3,800 jobcuts now. On 9/19, we counted an additional 5500 of the much reported 12,000 Honeywell jobcuts that we hadn't counted before, which brought Honeywell's workforce down from 113,500 to 108,000. So the additional 3,800 jobcuts that we're counting now represent 3800/108000x100%= 3.5% of the total surviving workforce.]
   Job cuts will [break down into -]
   • 5,300 in the aerospace businesses;
   • 6,400 in the automation division;
   • 2,900 in the specialty-materials business; and
   • 1,200 in transportation and power businesses....

2. New trouble for Swissair means a new revamping, by Elizabeth Olson, NYT, W1.
   GENEVA...- The Swissair Group, its precarious finances hit hard by the slump in travel, said [yester]day that it would take radical steps to reorganize by reducing its workforce and its long-haul flight schedule.
   [CEOs are such babies. Reducing your workforce isn't "radical" because it doesn't touch you. Radical is cutting the workweek for the whole company including you, but CEOs don't have the balls to really share the pain. These gutless wonders prefer to just talk tough - and push the pain on someone else.]
   Swissair, Europe's fifth-largest airline, is also seeking government support to stay in operation....
   [Oh yeah, that takes a LOT o' guts! And their government didn't even shut them down for a week. They kept flying all through the NYC disaster except to their US destinations.]
   Swissair said the first step would be to eliminate 3,000 jobs, or about 10% of the work force, from its in-flight catering unit, Gate Gourmet, which operates in 24 countries. Most of the [cuts] will be in North America.... Shares rose....

3. Etc...Excelon Corp., Globe staff and wire services, BG, D3.
   ...[will] cut its workforce by 160 people, or 27%. The Burlington MA company said the moves were part of a restructuring and integration plan connected to [the] firm's recent acquisition of Boston-based C-bridge Internet Solutions Inc. [see 5/24, #6]....
   [Again, the lethal takeover-downsizing connection.]

1. The airlines - Toll mounts as Northwest plans to cut 10,000 jobs, by Steven Greenhouse, NYT, C5.
   ...The Northwest Airlines Corp., the nation's fourth-largest carrier, disclosed the 19% reduction in its 53,000-member workforce..\..pushing to more than 70,000 the number of job cuts the nation's largest airlines have announced since the terrorist attacks last week.... The large number of layoffs has stunned many airline employees and angered many union leaders....
   [Note from a later article - "Northwest had announced earlier that about 1,000 management jobs would be among the 10,000 positions being cut systemwide because of the decline in air travel since Sept. 11, when hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But individual employees were given no advance notice that their job would be cut. Some of those cut were among the company's most senior employees, including spokesmen Doug Killian and Dennis Mollura, who were frequently quoted by the media. Employees were given a few minutes to clean out their desks and offices, then shown the door, according to several employees who asked that their names not be used." from "Northwest cuts management jobs," by Karren Mills, AP-NY-10-01-01 via AOLNews via RadioTony.]
   Saying the layoffs were worsening the crisis caused by the terrorist attacks..\..Pat Friend, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, called the layoffs unnecessary and...said: "The tactics of these airlines are un-American. Their greed and antipathy toward workers are needlessly going to hurt thousands more working families." Union officials at Northwest said they hoped to minimize the number of layoffs by urging many workers to take voluntary furloughs during which they would receive unemployment insurance and continued health insurance.... Under union contracts at many airlines, the most junior employees are to be laid off first.
   [Good 'ol LIFO = "last in, first out" = the venerable seniority system at work. The Timesizing economy of the future replaces seniority with versatility as the default criterion.]

2. Asahi and Daiwa to merge, cutting jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C3.
   TOKYO...- Asahi Bank Ltd. and Daiwa Bank Ltd. said [Wednes]day that they would merge, closing a third of their branches and cutting staff by a quarter as the two, Japan's fith- and sixth-largest lenders, battle a slowing economy and a rise in bad loans.
   [Oh that should help the economy speed up - not.]
   The banks, which are joining with Kinki Osaka Bank Ltd. and Nara Bank Ltd. to form a holding company by March 2002, plan to cut 6,307, or 27%, of their total staff and 227 branches, or 29% of their outlets, by March 2005. The new holding company will be called Daiwa Bank Holdings and will be based in Osaka.... The new bank will focus on small- and mid-size companies....
   Japanese banks have been merging at a record pace in the last two years to cope with rising bad loans and a weak economy.
   [Just like 1920s, #2 in America.]

3. Drastic reductions, chart from Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept., the domestic airline industry has announced layoffs that exceed 80,000....
   American Trans Air..\..Previous work force...8,000..\..Job cuts announced...1,500....

4. Navigant International, airline booking service, to cut jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
   ...The second-largest provider of airline booking services will eliminate about 1,200 jobs, or a fifth of its workforce because of lower travel demand after last week's terrorist attacks. The company...which is based in Denver..\..is also reducing salaries 5-12% and halting capital spending, Navigant said....
   [How strange that our economic poohbahs have designed 'stop-losses' and 'circuit breakers' and all kinds of other mechanisms to stop a self-fueling death spiral on the financial markets, as if they are anything but derivative and superficial, BUT NOTHING TO STOP A DEATH SPIRAL ON THE JOB AND CONSUMER MARKETS - which are fundamental. We propose automatic overtime-to-training&hiring conversion coupled with automatic overtime-to-underemployment adjustment. In other words, (A) training and hiring are automatically targeted, triggered, funded and paced by the market-determined incidence of overtime, and (B) the amount of overtime is automatically determined by the amount of underemployment, which includes unemployment, welfare, disability, homelessness and prisons. Another way of expressing (B) would be to say that the length of the workweek varies inversely with underemployment - if unemployment goes up, the workweek goes down, and vice versa - a natural homeostatic mechanism designed into the economy, at any desired level of aggregation. Another way to put it would be - the workweek is designed to automatically adjust to our rising levels of worksaving technology.]

5. Drastic reductions, chart from Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept., the domestic airline industry has announced layoffs that exceed 80,000....
   Airline...Midway..\..Previous work force...1,900..\..Job cuts announced...1,700...
   (Halted all operations on Sept. 12.)
   [Hmm, we previously picked up and counted only 1000 lost jobs at Midway Airlines - scan down to 9/19/2001, #6 below. But the present chart indicates 700 more announced cuts than that, and a previous workforce of 200 more again than that. If all operations indeed are halted, we need to count all 1900 of their previous workforce, meaning we still have to count 1900-1000= 900 lost jobs here.]

6. Drastic reductions, chart from Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept., the domestic airline industry has announced layoffs that exceed 80,000....
   Airline...Spirit..\..Previous work force...2,400..\..Job cuts announced...800....

7. Drastic reductions, chart from Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept., the domestic airline industry has announced layoffs that exceed 80,000....
   Mesa Air..\..Previous work force...4,000..\..Job cuts announced...700....

8. Drastic reductions, chart from Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept., the domestic airline industry has announced layoffs that exceed 80,000....
   Airline...Midwest Express..\..Previous work force...3,750..\..Job cuts announced...450....

9. Drastic reductions, chart from Bloomberg via NYT, C5.
   In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept., the domestic airline industry has announced layoffs that exceed 80,000....
   Airline...Frontier..\..Previous work force...2,600..\..Job cuts announced...440....

1. Europe - Turmoil hits large players and shakes second tier, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
   LONDON...- Joining the forlorn procession of U.S. and European airlines facing grim prospects after the terror attacks in New York and Washington, British Airways...said [yester]day that it would lay off one-eighth [13%] of its workers, drop 10% of its flights and mothball 20 planes.... British Airways had already been downsizing, with 3,000 layoffs in 2000 [we only picked up 1000 on 12/07/2000 #1] and 1,800 announced this year before the terror attacks [see 9/05/2001 #3]. [Yester]day's move adds 5,200 more....
   [We're taking the lower NYT figure even though the Boston Globe is later to press because of the evidence of sloppy editing in the Globe's inside headline and the fact that the Globe's higher figure (7000) can be explained as British Air's total September cuts (1800+5200). Here's the Globe's version -]
   Airlines's [sic] woes spreading fast to others, by Krasner and Kowalczyk, BG, E4.
   ...Yesterday, overseas airlines joined their American counterparts and began to make cuts, with British Airways, the largest European carrier, announcing 7,000 layoffs....

2. EMC to cut 2,400 jobs, by Ross Kerber, BG, E4.
   Data storage maker...will lay off...10% of its work force, and cut other costs in response to a worsening outlook for technology spending.
   [Your workforce is not a "cost." It's part of you.]
   The job cuts are the most ever for Hopkinton MA-based EMC.... The once high-flying company now has 23,400 employees worldwide, including about 8,000 in Massachusetts. A spokesman said...that the layoffs would affect most divisions.... EMC spokesman Michael Galiant said the cuts were in the works earlier \than\ last week's terrorist attacks.... "This is independent of those events" in New York and Washington, he said. "This is due to an economy that has shown no improvement overall." EMC made the announcement at 7 p.m. yesterday, after the close of trading.... "The business world is simply covered in a blanket of hesitation," CEO Joe Tucci said in a statement....

3. Applied Materials cuts 2,000 jobs, by Laurie Flynn, NYT, C9.
   The chip equipment maker [will] lay off...roughly 10% of its workforce in response to the continued slowdown in the semiconductor industry. The jobcuts will include 700 positions at the company's Santa Clara, Calif., offices; 500 in Austin, Tex.; and others worldwide. ...The jobcuts [will] be completed by the end of the fourth quarter. Since the beginning of the year, the company has taken a number of cost-saving measures, including employee and executive paycuts, mandatory furloughs and limits on temporary employees.
   [Applied Materials made our 'glimmers of timesizing' pages on 2/09/2001 with the idea of avoiding layoffs by..."Applied Materials asks employees to take Fridays off without pay."]
   James C. Morgan, chairman and CEO, said that despite those steps, "the length and severity of the downturn and lack of near-term visibility" made the latest cuts necessary....
   [No it didn't. James just didn't "get" how energetic he had to be on sharing the pain and cutting the workweek instead of the workforce. Now he's just fueling the downturn and the alienation within our society during this time of crisis, just like so many of the other insulated, unimaginative, and still-with-more-income-than-they-can-spend CEOs.]

4. Europe - Turmoil hits large players and shakes second tier, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
   ...¶Aer Lingus of Ireland [will] cut back operations by one-quarter, retire 7 of its 40 planes, abandon some trans-Atlantic routes and lay off 1,700 people....

5. Europe - Turmoil hits large players and shakes second tier, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
   ...¶Virgin Atlantic Airways, British Airways' biggest domestic rival, cut 1,200 jobs....
   [And here's a bit more info from a neighboring story -]
   Asia - Singapore's line, debt free, is in relatively good shape, by Wayne Arnold, NYT, W1.
   ...Singapore Airlines also owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic...which has experienced a steep falloff in traffic and said it would lay off 1,200 or its 9,000 employees as trans-Atlantic traffic dwindles....

6. Beth Israel hires turnaround firm - Hunter known for pushing layoffs, by Liz Kowalczyk, BG, E4.
   In the latest sign of its financial distress, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center [of Boston, Mass.] will hire the Hunter Group, a hospital rescue company known for its aggressive tactics, to develop a recovery plan.... Interim CEO Robert Melzer said yesterday that the Hunter Group, based in St. Petersburg, Fla., will provide 3-4 months of consulting for the Harvard teaching hospital beginning next month.
   [The coward can't do his own chopping? If he doesn't have the stomach for it, maybe he should avoid it altogether by slashing hours, not jobs.]
   The company has consulted to dozens of struggling hospitals and often recommends mass layoffs and reduction in services.
   [One of the real economic viruses of our time, like Chainsaw Dunlap.]
   "They have a reputation that is formidable..." [Funny how formidable=fearful came into vogue in the 1980s as CEOs got bored and irritable and compulsively grasping and short-sighted. "Lean and mean!" "Efficiency!" etc. etc. - they set out to see how much they could damage consumer markets before the whole house of cards collapsed, and now they're beginning to see it - but they still don't "get" it.]
   "...and they have a track record of turning around other academic medical centers," Melzer said in a written statement....
   [Show us the list and we'll show you 50% failures.]
   Two hospital sources said yesterday that the steering committee appointed to develop a recovery plan for the hospital already is discussing layoffs. They said that management is considering laying off about 400 employees, although that number may change....
   [We'll go with this figure for now, in case they don't bother with further announcements.]
   Beth Israel Deaconess, which is part of CareGroup, the state's second-largest hospital system, lost $32.7m from operations during the first three quarters of 2001....

7. [the devastating ripple effect of over-concentrated income due to over-concentrated skills&work due to our 60-yr-frozen workweek -]
   Steelcase profit slid in its 2nd quarter, Reuters via NYT, C9.
   ...A leading maker of office furniture said [yester]day that its Q2 earnings fell sharply...23% to $792.5m from $1.04B..\..largely because companies cut capital spending and bought fewer desks and chairs.... The company...expected to take after-tax charges of at least $5m in Q3 because of further restructuring, including voluntary early retirement packages for about 300 hourly employees..\..
   [If these are really voluntary, we'll assume our usual 50% exercise and count 150 jobs cut.]
   Excluding a $6.9m after-tax charge from the North American workforce reductions in the quarter..\..which ended Aug. 24 [1100 cuts on 8/22, #2 following 1200 in previous quarter on 2/13, #2]..., net income was $13.4m....

8. Broadway is in the war all the way, by Jesse McKinley, NYT, E1.
   Like so many other statistics released since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the numbers on Broadway this week were simultaneously unbelievable and all too real. It was, plainly put, one of the worst weeks in Broadway history.
   Five shows are closing the weekend because of the attacks [e.g., "Stones in His Pockets" and "Kiss Me, Kate"], and a half-dozen others, all long-running shows with large casts, are wobbling dangerously near the edge. Nearly 100 actors suddenly lost jobs, as did dozens of crew members and backstage workers.
   Layoffs were being whispered about in other sectors too, as press agents and producers alike looked to tighten their belts.... The pain extended far beyond Broadway as small theaters from TriBeCa to Clinton suddenly wondered how to pay the rent. Several Off Broadway shows were folding, including the camp musical "Bat Boy," a minor hit until last week, which will shutter on Sunday....
   For some shows, it was simply a case of terrible timing. "Our review was printed on Sept. 11 - the day we were attacked," said one actor and producer...Andrew J. Hoff, whose revival of "Boy's Life" by Howard Korder opened last week at PC2 in Clinton. "Nobody read it. Much worse, nobody was interested in the theater, understandably."...

9. Robotic Vision Systems shuts 1 plant, Bloomberg via BG, E4.
   Canton MA-based...maker of semiconductor inspection equipment will close a Tucson plant and move engineering and production to a plant in Hauppauge [sp?], NY. Robotic will eliminate about 45 jobs when it closes the Arizona plant.... The company is consolidating operations because of the almost year-long slowdown in the semiconductor industry. ...Shares fell....

10. [more on the domino effect -]
    The clouds darken - Airlines' woes leave others lurching, by Krasner and Kowalczyk, BG, E1.
    From the companies that build airplane engines, to the laundry in Somerville that washes passengers' blankets, to the shop at Boston's Old North Church that sells tourists their souvenirs, the dramatic drop in air travel is hurting businesses at levels of the economy in a rapid slowdown that analysts predict will lead to hundreds of thousands of layoffs....
    At Royal White Laundry in Somerville MA, which launders blankets and cloth napkins used on airplanes, manager Brian Leibovitz said he has laid off or reduced the hours of 20 employees - and he's worried that's not the end of it. ...He said, "...I'm trying to protect as m any jobs as I can."...
    [Well, we were going to estimate half'n'half, in other words, 10 laid off. But hey, Royal White is only a couple of blocks away, so we phoned Brian to get the straight story. Brian said he was doing a "20/20 plan" - a 20% layoff and a 20% hours reduction. So based on the 20-person workforce, that's two people laid off and the remaining 18 cut from 44 hrs/wk to 35 (see today's 'glimmers of timesizing' - 9/21/2001).]
    "This is a severe downturn in the economy," agreed Darryl Jenkins, an airline economist at George Washington University. "When one domino goes over, it just all starts to topple."...
    [Kinda like the twin towers - when one floor smacked down, they just all started to smack down.]

11. Europe - Turmoil hits large players and shakes second tier, by Alan Cowell, NYT, W1.
    ...¶Alitalia said today that it would cut its work force by about one-sixth [17%]....
    [Which, with no info on 1/6 of what, leaves us with unspecified jobcuts. More info above on 9/26.]

1. 40,000 more to lose jobs at airlines - United, American, TWA, like industry, face heavy losses, by Stephanie Stoughton, BG, C1.
   ...United parent UAL Corp. said it will furlough 20,000 employees, or 20% of its work force, as soon as possible. And AMR Corp., which owns both American and TWA, announced plans to lay off "at least" 20,000 employees, or 14% of its staff....

2. Kodak, hurt by slump, plans to lay off employees, Bloomberg via NYT, C2.
   The Eastman Kodak Co. said yesterday that its third-quarter profit would be more than a third below estimates and it planned to lay off employees because sales had been hurt by an economic slump now spreading overseas....
   [The only slightly more informative Boston Globe version -]
   Kodak cuts projected 3d-quarter earnings, AP via BG, C2.
   ROCHESTER, NY - ...blame[d] largely on a lagging economy and, most recently, fallout from last week's terror attacks....
   The world's biggest photography company said yesterday it will cut an unspecified number of jobs from its global payroll of 78,400....

1. Boeing and United plan to lay off thousands, by Laura Holson and Laurence Zuckerman, NYT, B2.
   As the airline industry continues to hemorrhage cash in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks, the Boeing Co. said last night that it would lay off 20,000 to 30,000 workers by the end of 2002 because of fewer orders for aircraft....
   [We've been burned several times recently by splitting the difference (e.g., 25,000) instead of taking the top of the jobcut range, so we're going to shorten the agony, assume the worst and take the top of Boeing's range (i.e., 30,000). Anyway, today's Boston Globe version of this story says -]
   Boeing reportedly to lay off up to 31,000 - Attack's impact on industry cited, AP via BG, F3.
   [A later story, "The clouds darken - Airlines' woes leave others lurching," by Krasner and Kowalczyk, 9/21/2001 BG, E1, says "Jet maker Boeing is cutting 15% of its staff" without giving us any idea which layoff level it's talking about.]

2. Boeing and United plan to lay off thousands, by Laura Holson and Laurence Zuckerman, NYT, B2.
   ...United Airlines is expected to announce today that it is laying off 20,000 employees, or 20% of its work force....

3. Honeywell expects to miss Wall St. estimates, Bloomberg via NYT, C13.
   MORRIS TOWNSHIP, N.J...- Honeywell International,...based here, said it now planned to eliminate more than 12,000 jobs this year, about 10% of its work force. The figure rose [yester]day from 8,200 jobs already cut or identified for elimination, a spokesman, Thomas Crane, said.
   [12000-8200= 3800, roundable to 4000. Now just to show you how much confusion reigns, here's the Boston Globe's version today, from AP -]
   Honeywell cuts, AP via BG, F3.
   Honeywell International announced 3,000 new job cuts and lowered its third-quarter earnings projections, citing a downturn in the commercial air transport industry. The high-tech manufacturer said it would cut a total of 12,000, or 10% of its 120,000 person work force, companywide, by year-end. That figure includes about 9,000 previously announced cuts....
   [So how many were previously announced or actually cut? - 8200 or 9000? On 4/21, #2 we only got 6500 to count. Since both sources agree on 12,000 total this year, we'll here count 12,000-6500= 5,500 jobcuts. And 120,000-6500= 113,500 total workforce that the additional 5500 cuts were cut from, so they represent 5500/113500x100%= 4.8% roundable to 5% of the total workforce. However, we do have that big general GE-Honeywell cut of 2/2, #1 lurking in the background, which probably means we're double-counting all these specific Honeywell announcements till their total cuts equal 30,000. And this happens to be a day when we can easily make a negative-30,000 correction. So we will.]

4. Germany: Cuts at bank, by Petra Kappi, NYT, W1.
   Germany's 3rd-largest bank, Dresdner Bank, [will] extend its reorganizing program by cutting an additional 1,300 jobs in an effort to reduce costs by 15% through the end of 2003, or $1.2B annually.... As at Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank [= 1st & 2nd-largest?], Dresdner Bank is struggling with rising costs and slumping profit and had already announced reductions of 5,000 jobs, about 10% of the work force.
   [Hmm, we've only got 2100 of these already announced reductions - 600 on 1/18 #2 and 1500 on 7/28 #2. That means we missed 5000-2100= 2900 of these already announced reductions. And that means we need now to count the current 1300 plus the previous 2900 equals 4,200 jobcuts.]

5. German layoffs, Bloomberg via BG, F3.
   ...Commerzbank AG said it might eliminate 4,000 jobs....

6. U.S. widens policy on detaining suspects; Troubled airlines get federal aid pledge - Layoffs at 44,000 - Industry gets promises of billions in help - Details not settled, by Richard Stevenson and Alison Mitchell, NYT, front page.
   [Note the 44,000 in the subhead. In straining to uncover its components, all we find is United Airlines' 20,000 (counted above) and the 23,000 by Continental (12,000, counted 9/16) and US Airways (11,000, counted 9/18). That leaves 1,000 unaccounted for, but at the key spot Midway Airlines' shutdown last week is mentioned with no figures. There were no jobcut figures in its bankruptcy announcement on 8/15 either. So we haven't counted anything for them yet. Sooo, we're now going to count this silhouetted 1,000 from the 44,000 in the subhead as jobs lost at Midway Airlines.]
   ...Executives of the major airlines shuttled from the Transportation Dept. to the White House to Capitol Hill to plead for help in coping with the economic impact of the attacks, saying they expected the layoffs to reach 100,000....
   [Doncha love this? - Aren't these some of the same guys that yelled for smaller government? - And now look at them, squealing and whining for government to be big enough to save their bloated executive pay. And in case you don't get the full hypocrisy, that means taxpayers should be big enough, and TAXES should be big enough.]

7. AltaVista hires new CEO, cuts more jobs - The cutbacks mostly will hit workers in AltaVista's failed online shopping comparison service, AP via BG, F6.
   Internet search pioneer...yesterday announced another shakeup in its struggle to survive, with the hiring of a new CEO...James Barnett..\..and a 30% cut in its rapidly dwindling work force.... Reflecting the grim prospects facing AltaVista and other fallen Internet stars, Barnett's tenure began with the purge of about 160 of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company's 500 employees.... The shopping service's Irvine, Calif., office will close in the reorganiztion.... In an interview yesterday, Barnett said the latest job cuts should be enough to let AltaVista stay in business until it starts to make money..\.. Barnett...most recently was president of San Francisco-based MyFamily.com, one of the few online companies that has been able to build a significant subscription business on the Web..\..
   [These high tech guys are sooo smart, yet they can't figure out that if the big picture is bleak, their small picture is bleak, and if they do layoffs instead of employment-preserving hours cuts, they're only strengthening that big picture's bleakness.]
   It marks AltaVista's third mass layoff in the past year.
   [Let's see. We had 200 cuts on 1/19 #3, 225 on 9/16/2000 #2, and stretching "in the past year," 50 and 60 cuts respectively on 5/11/2000 #1 and 5/10/2000 #2, which suggests that AltaVista's payroll peaked at 500+200+225+50+60= 1,035 last spring. However, in the present article we now read -]
   AltaVista's payroll peaked at about 950 workers last summer....

8. Venture deal took a turn for the worse, by Beth Healy, Boston Globe, F1.
   ...Layoffs were quietly announced at several [Boston] area tech companies last week, even as normal activities ground to a near halt at larger businesses, amid the grim news in New York and Washington. Bowstreet Inc., a Web services company based in Portsmouth, NH, cut as many as 70 employees last Wednesday, employees said. ...Bowstreet amassed $140m in venture capital from big-name backers last year [but] a spokeswoman said, "The company has taken an action to reduce staff in light of the economic conditions and the company's continuing drive toward profitability." She added, "This was a very difficult decision. This action had been planned for several weeks and many employees were aware of the impending reduction."
   [It's difficult because it's so inhuman. We're social creatures. We've evolved to stick together, to unite in the face of crises, and mass layoffs fly in the face of this and worsen any crisis. They're just stupid. Trimming hours and keeping everyone together for as long as possible will sweep once it gets some media.]

9. Venture deal took a turn for the worse, by Beth Healy, Boston Globe, F1.
   ...International Data Corp., a high-tech research firm in Framingham MA, let go of 61 people last Tuesday, employees familiar with the layoff said....

10. Venture deal took a turn for the worse, by Beth Healy, Boston Globe, F1.
    ...Peoplestreet Inc. [a Cambridge MA startup] had recently signed up some big new clients for its electronic business-card technology, including Microsoft.... But at the 11th hour, a key investor...Quantum Venture Partners..\..backed off [and then] so did the other investors, including MMC Capital...and BankAmerica Ventures.
    [As the Great Depression II sweeps over the world, fueled by CEOs own suicidal jobcuts instead of cushioning hours cuts, "venture" capitalists lose their balls and become less and less venturesome. In short, cluckcluckcluck - they become a bunch of cowardly chickens. And that metaphor is probably unfair to chickens.]
    That was Friday. By Monday, Peoplestreet had fired its 30 employees and put the company up for sale....

11. Venture deal took a turn for the worse, by Beth Healy, Boston Globe, F1.
    ...And Virtual Inc., a provider of management and public relations services for technology associations, cut its staff to 25 from about 34....
    [Meaning 9 jobcuts.]

1. Logan's largest carrier plans cuts, by Stephanie Stoughton, BG, D4.
   Warning that the nation's airline industry faces a financial crisis following last week's terrorist attacks, US Airways, the largest carrier at [Boston's] Logan Airport [will] cut about 11,000 jobs and drastically reduce its number of flights.... In addition to laying off approximately one-fourth of its work force, US Airways plans to reduce flight capacity by 23%....

2. [sometimes downsizings aren't done by CEOs - unless they're arsonists -]
   Fire destroys Worcester metals plant, by Christopher Rowland, BG, B2.
   A three-alarm fire at Universal Metals Inc. in Worcester yesterday destroyed a three-story scrap metal porcessing plant and forced the evacuation of an elementary school and dozens of homes as dense, black smoke billowed through the neighborhood.... All 30 Universal Metals employees escaped safely and no injuries were reported, officials said.
   The fire, apparently ignited when a forklift caused a spark, started in a pile of titanium shavings and quickly spread to other piles of titanium stored in bins, fire officials said. The company processes scrap titanium for resale.... The roof and walls of the building collapsed inward about 45 minutes after the initial call was received at 11:49 a.m..\..said Deputy Chief James Callery....
   [Of course, the employer may turn out to be an angel, like Aaron Feuerstein of Malden Mills, who kept his employees on the payroll after his big fire until the place was rebuilt. If we read of such a Good Deed here, we'll debit our jobcut count.]

3. Work force cuts, Bloomberg via BG, D9.
   Concord MA-based Manufacturers' Services Ltd.plans to reduce the work force at its Mt. Prospect, Ill., facility by 60% after the electronics maker scaled back a supply agreement with 3Com.... Manufacturers' made modems and telephone carrier systems for [them].
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]

4. FiberMark agrees, Dow Jones via BG, D9.
   Brattleboro, Vt.-based FiberMark Inc. agreed to sell the balance of its domestic engine filter media volume currently manufactured at its Rochester, Mich. plant and some production equipment to Ahlstrom Corp. for about $13.3m.... FiberMark plans to cease operations at the Rochester plant by year-end.
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]

1. 9/16 Crippled airlines face bankruptcy and mass layoffs, by Howe and Aoki, BG, front page.
   ...Continental, one of only two major US airlines to report small profits during the first half of the year, announced it was laying off 12,000 of its 56,000 employees [21%]. It also joined American Airlines and Northwest Airlines in announcing it will drop 20% of its scheduled flights because it anticipates a huge drop in passengers..\.. As US airlines struggled to resume severely limited operations yesterday, aviation officials said a specter of mass bankruptcy - and 100,000 or more layoffs - looms over the industry....
   [What's so difficult about cushioning the disaster and keeping everyone together by trimming hours for all instead of separating people into those with fulltime or more hours and those with NONE?! The NYT version of this is -]
   9/17 In early economic fallout, major carriers cut back, by Belluck and Zuckerman, NYT, C6.
   ...In an early sign of the economic fallout from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Continental Airlines on Saturday became the first major airline to announce sweeping layoffs. Some 12,000 people will immediately lose their jobs, more than 20% of the carrier's workforce....
   Jessica Santello...was a supervisor of gate agents in Raleigh NC for Midway Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy protection before last week's terrorist attacks [see 8/15/2001] and afterward shut down for good. "Everybody has just been in shock," she said. "Part-timers are trying to get full-time work at their other jobs, and most of us, though, just don't know what to do. I'm sitting here looking at the classified [want ads] right now."
   On Wednesday, the industry faced a 2 pm deadline for making quarterly payments of hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket taxes to the government. Eager to hold on to as much of their cash as possible after the grounding of flights, the airlines petitioned the IRS for relief; they received a letter at 1:50 pm stating that they would not be subject to a penalty if they deferred the payments.
   They did.

2. [And it ain't just airline employees getting clobbered -]
   9/17 Ban on curbside check-in ends source of income, by David Arnold, BG, A16.
   Lynn Edwards, a skycap who has made his living for the past half-dozen years checking baggage curbside outside Terminal B at [Boston's] Logan Airport, watched watched passengers yesterday helping themselves to the wheelchairs and suitcase carts that just a week ago had been a source of his livelihood....
   Edwards, one of about 150 skycaps at Logan, said his job was all but eliminated after Tuesday's terrorist attacks when the FAA deemed curbside check-in a security risk and banned the practice....
   "The livelihood is gone," said Warren Roach, a skycap at TWA. "...My job is finished," said Roach...a skycap for 37 years. The Dorchester native said he did not know what he would do next for work.
   Almost all skycaps work for private companies that...contract with the airlines, the skycaps said. Their base pay is about $2.50 an hour, and few of the skycaps receive benefits. The good income from tips, however, apparently was more than enough to earn a comfortable living. "Put it this way, it was enough to keep me coming in here for more than two decades in the rain, snow, whatever," said one skycap who requested anonymity.
   With no tips from passengers checking in at curbside, the skycaps' only tips now come from carrying bags or pushing the wheelchairs of passengers who ask for help. "And if they don't ask, there's not a whole lot for me to do," said Edwards. He works from 5 am to 1:30 pm with five other skycaps outside two doors in Terminal B.
   Just as he was explaining that he will be looking for other work, a sedan pulled up to the curb. Phyllis Pingley of Fall River got out to assist Henrietta Bunger, her elderly aunt, who was scheduled to fly to Chicago. "Excuse me. OK if I borrow this wheelchair?" Pingley asked Edwards. "Please do," Edwards answered. Then quietly he added, "It's over."
   [And Logan is only one of the nation's dozens of big airports, about others of which we have no specifics.]

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