Timesizing® Associates - HOMEPAGE

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Downsizings, June 17-30, 2003
[Commentary] ©2003 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 117, Harvard Square, Cambridge MA 02238 USA (617) 623-8080

6/28/2003   1 downsizing, totaling 375 lost jobs, reported in Wall St Journal &/or NY Times
(not counting economywide "Inflation eases, but other worries build up in Brazil - After gaining a measure of financial credibility, Brazil confronts a hunger for jobs and growth," by Tony Smith, NYT, B1 & B3, which states, "A clash [occurred] this week between Rio de Janeiro riot police and some 15,000 desperate unemployed people jostling to sign up for [6,000] jobs as street sweepers and garbage collectors.... Since taking office nearly 6 months ago [Pres. Luiz] da Silva, the left-leaning former metalworker, has been steering...between inflation and recession, raising interest rates to 4-year highs to keep consumer prices under control but trying not to push them so high as to stop the economy dead.... So far, the central bank has raised its pivotal interest rate to a dizzying 26.5%, and the government has committed itself to raise its budget surplus to 4.25% of GDP.... A broad CPI rose just 0.22% in the 4 weeks to mid-June, well off the 0.61% rise in the previous month. Brazil's country risk...is now below 800 basis points, compared with over 2,400 just before last year's elections. That allowed the central bank to lower rates by half a percentage point last week.... Interest rates are so high - Brazil's 26% overnight rate is still more than 4 times Mexico's benchmark 5.5% rate and far exceeds the 1% US federal funds rate - that they are virtually strangling economic activity. Industrial production in April was down 4% from a year earlier. The economy contracted 0.1% in Q1.... Retail sales have slumped, and unemployment rose to 12.8% in May - its highest level in 14 months. ...In Sao Paulo, Brazil's economic powerhouse, the jobless rate has topped 20%, further fueling the already alarming upward spiral of crime and violence. Even for those with work, the news is bad, as average wages in May fell to 841 reais ($290), 15% lower than a year earlier.") -

1. BMC Industries to shift work from Europe to New York, Bloomberg via NYT, B4.
   ...A maker of eyeglass lenses and components for TV screens [plans] to move some operations.., affecting 375 employees.... A plant in Tatabanya, Hungary, will be closed..\..
   [Troubles with East European employees or what??]
   BMC, which is based in Minneapolis, said its Buckbee-Mears unit would begin using a plant in Cortland NY..\.. The company also said...that it might fail to meet the terms of its loan agreements....

1. Germany: Changes at utility, by Petra Kappi, NYT, W1.
   The German utilities group RWE plans to cut 1,000 jobs in the next 2 years as part of a revamping that will consolidate the company into 7 divisions from 13.... The move should cut expenses by 300m euros ($343m) a year..\.. The move follows $33B worth of acquisitions over the last 2 years that made RWE the 3rd-largest utility company in Europe....
   [Again, the toxic takeover-downsizing connection. Again, overall economic diversity and consumer-base health sacrificed to the hollow chest-thumping of myopic CEOs.]
   The company, based in Essen, said the changes would take effect in Oct. 1.

2. Nasdaq Europe closing, by Paul Meller, NYT, W1.
   Nasdaq Europe, the struggling pan-European exchange based in Brussels, will be shut, its parent, the Nasdaq Stock Market of New York, said.
   [Unspecified lost jobs.]
   Some of the 35 companies listed on the exchange have already found alternative listings.... The CEO, Robert Greifeld, said Nasdaq would be concentrating on the U.S. market....

1. The Netherlands: Cuts at airline, Bloomberg via NYT, W1.
   ...KLM Royal Dutch Airlines said it might cut as many as 4,500 jobs, about 50% more than announced in April, as demand for travel falls because of a global economic slowdown and a respiratory-disease epidemic....
   [We estimated 2000 cuts on 4/02/2003 #2, so we have still to count 4500-2000= 2,500 jobcuts now. Here's the WSJ version -]
   KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Dow Jones via WSJ, D4.
   ...said it was considering cutting 1,500 jobs on top of 3,000 already announced, as it seeks further ways to trim costs while the industry weathers its worst downturn in decades. The new cuts would bring total job losses to 4,500, or 13% of KLM's workforce....
   [If 4500 is 13%, the total workforce is 4500/13x100= 34,615 and the currently counted 2500 is 2500/34615= 7% of the total.]
   "It is true that SARS has peaked but we're not seeing any substantial improvement and thus improvements in our results"..\..CEO Leo van Wijk said at the company's annual shareholders' meeting.... [I.e.,] business conditions remained rough....
   ["KLM" stands for something like "Koeningklicke Luftvaart Maatschapij" in Dutch, which has English cognates something like "Kingly Loftfare Meetingship" or "Royal Airtrip Company." Put that in your next science fantasy!]

2. May Department Stores Co., Dow Jones via WSJ, D4.
   ...laid off about 1,500 workers in sales management and support positions, about 1.3% of its workforce. "We're adjusting the workforce to keep expenses in line with sales," said Sharon Bateman, VP of corporate communications for the St. Louis operator of department-store chains....
   [That's like the giant Procrustes in Greek mythology who adjusted his guests' height to the length of his guest bed by chopping off as much of their legs as it took to fit them nicely in. May Dept. Stores should be adjusting their "bed" instead of their people to "keep expenses in line with sales" - in other words, adjusting their corporate workweek instead of their corporate workforce - saving themselves a lot of employee morale problems, not to mention loyalty problems, pilferage, and loss of top employees who are first to rev up their resumes. Timesizing, not downsizing.]
   Ms. Bateman said the company has 116,000 workers. She said the cutbacks would affect some employees in sales support jobs, like stockroom work and housekeeping, as well as some divisional and area sales managers....

1. Phone job cuts in Spain, AP via NYT, C5.
   MADRID...- The Spanish telecom giant Telefonica [plans] to cut about 15,000 jobs, or 37% of the workforce, at its fixed-line unit in Spain by 2007. The unit, Telefonica de Espana, which had 40,634 employees at the end of March, lost its fixed-line monopoly in Spain in 1998. Its share of the market has dropped to about 80% since then.
   [They're cutting 37% and their market has only dropped 20%?? That will guarantee their market drops further.]
   All of the jobcuts will be voluntary, the company said.
   [15 thousand voluntary jobcuts?? That could take 30-40 years.]
   Management will present the plan to union representatives.

2. Switzerland: Airline to cut jobs and fleet, AP via NYT, W1.
   Switzerland's national carrier, Swiss International Air Lines [they should have kept "Swissair"!] said that it would cut its workforce and fleet by nearly a third. The airline [will] cut 3,050 jobs and 34 aircraft to save $1.2B.... Swiss International has been plagued by problems since it was formed in March 2002 on the foundation of the collapsed [or financially sabotaged?] Swissair. It employs about 9,500 people.

3. Sony Ericsson venture to close 2 sites and cut 500 jobs, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., a mobile telephone joint venture of the Sony Corp. and Ericcson, [will] stop making some phones for the U.S. market and close research centers...in Munich [Germany] and in Research Triangle Park, NC...the company said. The venture will halt the production of handsets for code division multiple access (CDMA) technology in the U.S., where sales were less lucrative, one analyst said.

4. Noted..., WSJ, B2.
   Viacom Inc.'s cable channel Comedy Central [is] letting go 80 employees, or roughly 20% of its staff...as a result of Viacom's buying the 50% of the channel it didn't own from AOL Time Warner Inc. earlier this year.
   [Again the toxic takeover-downsizing connection.]
   The areas affected by the layoffs include affiliate relations, creative services, HR, finance and production management. Comedy Central has been folded into Viacom's MTV Networks, whose channels include MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and the National Network.
   [Not so comedic if you're one of the 80.]

1. Northern Trust is cutting 700 jobs, or 9% of staff, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...as part of an effort to cut annual operating expenses by up to $150m. Most of the layoffs have already been made this month, the company said. Along with the elimination of 690 other jobs from the recent sale of assets of its retirement consulting branch, Northern Trust, which is based in Chicago, has reduced its workforce by 15% this quarter. It now has fewer than 8,000 workers, down from 9,336 at the end of March.
   [9336-8000= 1336, while [We never caught the 690 other jobcuts, so we'll now count 700+690= 1,390 cuts, which is indeed 14.9, or rounded, 15% of 9336. And 1390 does bring the workforce down to 9336-1390= 7,946, which is indeed "fewer than 8,000."]

• Jobless workers switch fields to find relief, by Jon Hilsenrath, WSJ, B1.
  ASHEBORO, N.C. - ...There aren't many silver linings in a national job market that has shed 2.5 million payroll positions over the past 28 months..\.. Tectonic shifts [we'd cut the smoke & say shrinkages] in the nation's job market are playing out at tiny Randolph Community College in this small manufacturing town. Stung by layoffs at nearby furniture, apparel and appliance factories, workers are flooding the school with applications to enroll in nursing and teaching programs.... In a [nationwide] scramble to find stable jobs, many workers are flocking to industries that have suffered through chronic worker shortages in recent years. Shortages have been "forcing" [our quotes - ed.] American hospitals, for instance, to raid developing countries like the Philippines or Jamaica for nurses.... Enrollment in 4-year U.S. nursing programs rose 12% in the past 2 years after falling throughout the 1990s, according to the American Assoc. of Colleges of Nursing. At community colleges like Randolph, applications for 2-year nursing programs jumped 35% last year, says the National League for Nursing. "It's [a job] they can't ship overseas," says Angela Freeman, a...mother of two who is studying nursing at Randolph. She [was laid off after] 13 years making upholstered furniture here....
  [They can't ship nursing jobs overseas but they can and are doing something just as destabilizing = shipping Third-World nurses here from overseas. So basically, nurses, furious at their louzy treatment by doctors, went to all the trouble over the last 20 years to professionalize, to shut down the un-degree'd 3-year hospital training programs, to create a power-conferring shortage of nursing skills just as doctors have done, and now, for nurses, it's all unravelling again, possibly worse than before. Two-year nursing programs have sprung up, and doctors, in an effort to keep nurses in their subservient dump-on-able place, have been "forced" to bring in legions of Third-World nurses. Truly the only hope for nurses, as for any skill group, is a general reduction in the workweek and the general shortage-created improvement in their bargaining power, wages, benefits and working conditions, which a general workweek reduction would bring. Same goes for teachers -]
  Similar trends are playing out in teaching. California has seen a 40% increase in the number of people taking teacher-qualification exams during the past two years. In NYC, 20,000 people applied this winter for a program aimed at retraining workers to become teachers, a large jump from 8,000 applicants 2 years ago....
  [Honest to God, it's desperate out there, and all because we haven't reduced the workweek for 63 years despite wave after wave of worksaving technology. What a pathetic bunch of clueless clowns we are! We should all be living in heaven at our levels of miraculous technology, but because we let FDR distract us from our power issue, the length of the workweek (alias the shrinking, technologically appropriate share of human employment per person per time unit), we are getting more and more desperate. No one wants to be the first to leave the office at night, so for those who still have full-time jobs, hours are actually getting longer and longer, not shorter and shorter. And of course, this just makes it worse for those who don't still have full-time jobs. We simply must converge and focus on redefining "full time" downward to levels it should be for our stage of technological advance. There is no fixed level the workweek should be forever - it must be slowly adjusting against under- and un-employment.]

• Career jungle - Look far down the road, pointer blurb (to B10), WSJ, B1.
  In a grim job market, layoff victims need a new approach. For most, that means adjusting to a long-term perspective.
  [That's right. And the best thing they can do is band together and pressure for citywide, statewide and nationwide work sharing. That means cutting the workweek, to squeeze out the diminishing "lump" of market-demanded human employment onto more, ideally all, people. Our version of this approach is called Timesizing, as opposed to downsizing in response to technology.]

• Online job hunting is tough -...Don't call us, by Kris Maher, WSJ, B1.
  ...The unpleasant truth, according to job seekers, career counselors and even some companies, is that applying for jobs on corporate Web sites is often a complicated and frustrating process....

• Baby boomers seek new ways to escape career claustrophobia, by Carol Hymowitz, WSJ, B1.
  One of the biggest concerns for managers in their 40s and 50s, besides job security, is the lack of opportunities for advancement. There are so many baby boomers that the scramble for seats at the top is highly competitive. Even worse, the usual competition from younger people is tougher than ever as companies promote ambitious employees even in their 20s who are gaining technical and global experience very early in life. The result is that many baby boomers feel underutilized and stuck in jobs they already have mastered years before they plan to retire....
  [Again, the longer-term answer is overtime-targeted OJT (on-the-job training) and a workweek that adjusts downward until under- and un-employment is down to referendum-set acceptable levels. Four depressing stories about the job market have made it to the front page of the second section of the Wall Street Journal. Any possibility this concern can ever make it two or three pages earlier to the editorial pages? And then perhaps a call for solutions? And then perhaps an end to the out-of-hand dismissal of workweek reduction and work sharing?]

1. 6/23 Fiat plans new round of layoffs as it launches Lancia Ysilon, by Alessandra Galloni, WSJ, B3.
   ...On Thursday [6/26], the carmaker's parent, Fiat SpA, is due to announce as many as 12,000 layoffs, mainly outside Italy, in several of its units - including farm equipment maker CNH, truck company Iveco and car-parts business Magneti Marelli, a person close to the company said.
   Fiat has put about 8,500 people, mainly at its Italian car factories, on extended temporary layoffs last autumn, thought the measures weren't enough to prevent an operating loss for the automaker of 334m euros ($386.9m) in Q1....
   [We'd count these as a timesizing event if and only if their "temporariness" was backed up by a rehire date. Otherwise, we treat indefinite furloughs or leaves or 'temporary layoffs' and straight layoffs or job eliminations.]
   [Followup -]
   Fiat to raise funds, cut staff, but analysts question plan, by Alessandra Galloni, 6/26/2003 WSJ, B2.
   ROME - Italian car and industrial conglomerate Fiat SpA is due to announce today plans to raise about 3.8B euros ($4.4B) in fresh capital and lay off as many as 12,000 workers....
   [More followup -]
   Fiat to eliminate jobs and close plants - Carmaker predicts a profit in 3 years, by Eric Sylvers, 6/27/2003 NYT, W1.
   [Dream on. Profit requires markets, and self-fueling downsizing is guaranteeing that - unless CEOs switch to timesizing.]
   TURIN, Italy...- In what has been called its last chance to turn around its car business and save itself from ruin, Fiat [yester]day announced a 4-year plan that includes 12,300 layoffs, a 1.84B-euro capital increase and a return to profit in 2006. Fiat, which lost 3.9B euros last year and recently had its debt rating cut to junk status by both S&P's and Moody's Investors Service, will [lay off] 2,800 people in Italy and 9,500 abroad....
   [2800+9500= 12300. We caught 12000 of these 12300 layoffs on 6/21-23/2003 #1 above, so we at first think we still need to count 12300-12000= 300 layoffs now. But in view of the following information -]
   Fiat, which will have about 169,000 employees after the newest round of layoffs, has almost completed 8,100 previously announced jobcuts....
   [We look back and find these 8100 previously announced cuts on 10/10/2002 #1, but we also find two extra counts in November: 1900 on 11/01/2002 #1 and 600 on 11/08/2002 #3.   1900+600= 2500. So if Fiat really went right from the 8100 to the 12300 and we've already counted 8100+2500+12000, we've actually overcounted by 2500-300= 2200. So we'll forgo counting the 'extra' 300 now (6/27).]

2. 6/21 Mexico: Monitor plant to close, Bloomberg via NYT, B2.
   The Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan will close a Mexican computer monitor plant in July, forcing 1,250 employees out of work, because of a drop in sales.... The plant produces TV-style monitors, and...demand has been hurt by the popularity of flat-panel monitors.

3. 6/21 Belgium: Insurance jobs cut, Bloomberg via NYT, B2.
   The financial company Fortis [plans] to cut 750 jobs, or 14% of the workforce, at its Dutch insurance unit to cut costs as domestic demand declines and lower interest rates crimp margins.... Fortis, with HQ in Brussels and Utrecht...will eliminate the positions over the next 3 years as it integrates ASR Verzekeringsgroep, which it bought in 2000....

4. 6/23 Downward spiral - Already stumbling, Germany now faces threat of deflation - As prices slide, consumers just wait for a better deal; The Fed watches closely - Cabinetmaker's sad birthday, by Thomas Sims, WSJ, front page.
   PFULLENDORF - ...Last year, Alno AG, one of Germany's biggest makers of made-to-order kitchen cabinets, cut prices by 11% to celebrate its 75th anniversary. Sales [or revenues?!] dropped 9%. In the past year, it has trimmed 28% of its staff, or more than 450 workers - a huge blow to a town of 14,000....
   Germany's historic fear of inflation [due to the disastrous hyperinflation of the early 1920s that facilitated Hitler's rise] led it to insist that theEU adopt strict budget rules for countries that join the euro. With Germany [itself] already violating those limits, it has no room to cut taxes [thank God, since US-style taxcuts for the rich try to shortcut directly to boosting financial markets without boosting the job and consumer markets they depent on!] or boost spending. That has helped push the country into a second recession in 2 years and driven up unemployment to 11%, further weakening consumer confidence.
   ...The vast safety net than makes workers feel secure is also helping to pull Germany down..\..in the eyes of people such as Mr. Gebert [chairman] of cabinetmaker Alno...: Companies shy away from hiring because regulations make firing difficult even if the economy slumps.
   [This articulation is inadequate. We must distinguish between -
   • individual firing for cause (necesssary and good) and
   • mass layoffs "if the economy slumps" (unnecessary, consumer-base-damaging, and economy-undermining) which must now be handled by trimming the workweek for every employee and conserving employee morale and consumer confidence by maintaining unity and togetherness, instead of chopping jobs (and consumers and markets).]
   The federal government in Berlin recently approved a spate of "reforms" [our quotes]...such as cutting the nation's generous unemployment benefits
   [which, without nationwide worksharing via fluctuating adjustment of the workweek, mostly downward, will do nothing but worsen the situation by cutting further into the consumption and the consumer base]
   and liberalizing restrictions of store-opening hours.
   [which will help a little, but if people have no jobs and/or less money, increasing shopping hours won't increase shopping - this is just another impotent attempt at a shortcut, as if the government said, "Let's make all the peripheral and secondary adjustments we can except in the primary problem = the workweek is much too long for our level of efficient, productivity-multiplying technology.]
   But it has also flipflopped on taxbreaks.
   [Taxbreaks and exports are secondary and even trivial compared to the maintenance of a robust domestic consumer base, meaning consumer (b2c) markets. Even at only 56% of the economy, as in Germany, it is the biggest market sector and the foundation of two of the other markets - the b2b (business-to-business) and financial markets. Without it, they are lost. But the consumer markets today depend critically on the job market, because it is the only source of sustainable consumers and consumption, as opposed to unsustainable makework and cloaked parasitism. And the job market, deprived of its usual "cheats" of makework and labor culling (war, plague, starvation) is entirely dependent on currently implemented worksharing technologies, which in our day are utterly primitive and rudimentary all around the world. The most advanced, gradual and market-oriented is Timesizing.]
   So far, he says, the "reforms" [our quotes] have stirred caution, rather than optimism, both among companies and consumers. "In the U.S., there are ups and downs in the economy but there's always light at the end of the tunnel," Mr. Gebert says.
   [Except 1929-1940, and the so-called "light" at the end of the tunnel in 1941 was looming world war, to discipline management and centrifuge national income in the worst possible way - by 'culling' (killing and maiming) the labor surplus. And we are heading into the same tunnel again now, thanks to our kneejerk downsizing response to technology = chopping jobs (and consumers) instead of trimming working hours for all.]
   "But in Germany, let's face it, we've been in a downturn four, five, six years.
   [So much for the irresponsible spin of the professional economists, visible above in the "helped push the country into a second recession in two years." Compare their attempts to cover up the 12-13 year recession-depression in Japan and the 2-3 year recession-depression in the USA.]
   "I don't see any perspective where we can say the structural problems will be solved."
   [Bingo, a version of The Big Question. And this from an otherwise intelligent top executive in a country to which Japan sent its Labor Minister a couple of years ago to study worksharing systems? There definitely seems to be a 'Gardol shield' between these people's brains and the simple and obvious solution = Walter Reuther's "fluctuating adjustment of the workweek" vs. un- and under-employment. It ain't rocket science.]

5. 6/23 Downward spiral - Already stumbling, Germany now faces threat of deflation, by Thomas Sims, WSJ, front page, A7.
   PFULLENDORF...raked in more than $12m in corporate tax in 1995. This year, corporate tax receipts are expected to come in at less than half of that, and the reduction is primarily linked to the economy, \says\ Manfred Moll, Pfullendorf's deputy mayor.... The city slashed the maintenance budget to less than $1m, half of the level in 2000. The city has also cut its workforce, to 156 from 170 people.
   [So, 170-156= 14 jobcuts.]
   Mr. Moll still doesn't know where the town will get nearly $1m to fill this year's budget hole....

6. 6/23 Downward spiral - Already stumbling, Germany now faces threat of deflation, by Thomas Sims, WSJ, front page, A7.
   PFULLENDORF - ...Geberit AG, a big bathroom-equipment maker, has also cut staff....
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]

• Singapore: Cuts at airline, by Wayne Arnold, NYT, W1.
  Faced with what is likely to be its first quarterly loss, Singapore Airlines [will] lay off 414 employees who are based in Singapore in its biggest retrenchment since it began flying in 1972.... The layoffs represent 1.5% of the airline's Singapore workforce, and consist largely of ground staff..\.. The impact of SARS on travel has halved the number of passengers flying Singapore Airlines and forced the airline to cut capacity 1/3.

1. EDS to cut jobs, sell assets, take write-offs to halt slide, by Gary McWilliams, WSJ, B7.
   Computer-services company Electronic Data Systems Corp. [E.D.S., of] Plano TX..\., hoping to halt a deep slide in its outsourcing business, plans [to] cut 2,700 jobs in addition to the nearly 5,000 workers dismissed late last year.
   [We counted 5500 on 10/31/2002 #1 so we'll just count 2700-(5500-5000)= 2700-500= 2,200 jobcuts now (assuming the 700 "moved" jobs of 11/21/2002 #2 don't come into this at all). EDS had 140,000 employees before it cut 2000 on 7/03/2002 #1, our now-counted 2200 cuts, it would have 140000-2000-5500= 132,500 total workforce, and our present downsizing would be 2200/132500= 1.7% of the precut whole.]
   Many of the new cuts would come from European operations....

2. Britain: Tobacco jobs cut, Reuters via NYT, W1.
   The cigarette maker British American Tobacco [will] cut 1,330 jobs in Britain and Canada as it move[s] production to growth markets like South Korea and Nigeria. The group, which makes Lucky Strike, Kent, Dunhill and Pall Mall cigarettes, said 490 jobs would go in Britain and 840 jobs at its Imperial Tobacco Canada unit.

3. Restructuring of U.S. network, more job cuts are planned, WSJ, B7.
   Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. [the good ol' C.P.R.] is boosting its planned jobcuts to 820 from 300 [announced earlier this year per NYT, C4] as part of a plan to increase productivity.
   [Hey, the good news is that it's still in existence! Legions of model railroaders will be delighted, because they love the smart old crimson and gray livery of the CPR, the bright new scarlet, and the fact that the CPR stayed in steam for longer than almost any other North American RR.]
   The move includes a restructuring of CPR's northeastern US rail network, which operates as the Delaware & Hudson Railway [D&HRR - and gave its name to Delson, Que!]. The jobcuts will apply across CP's operations and take place over the next two years. The company currently employs about 15,800. ...Said Rob Ritchie, CP's president and CEO, "This situation has been exacerbated by the unexpected rise in the value of the Canadian dollar added to sustained high fuel prices."...
   [The Times version -]
   Canadian Pacific Railway plans additional job cuts, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...as it increases cost-reduction efforts and will reduce the value of track it owns in NY State. ...Canada's 2nd-biggest railroad...said earlier this year that it would cut 300 jobs.
   [We did not catch any earlier cuts this year so we'll count the whole total now.]
   ..\..The write-down, which is for C$75m ($56m), is on the D&HRR, a line in the U.S. that the company might sell.
   [Note also our nostalgic mention of the CPR on 2/2/2002 #3.]

4. Switzerland: Bank layoffs, by Alison Langley, NYT, W1.
   The continued slump in equity trading and mergers has led the Swiss bank UBS to lay off 500 investment bankers worldwide....

5. Furniture Brands International Inc., Dow Jones via WSJ, D4.
   FBI's Thomasville Furniture Industries unit will close a plant in Winston-Salem NC by October. The plant, which employs 400, primarily make wood bedroom and diningroom furniture, a product category increasingly being shipped in from the Far East by Furniture Brands and other U.S. furniture makers. The plant closing, expected to begin in September, will leave Thomasville operating 25 other plants with 5,400 employees in NC and VA.
   [Compare previous downsizings on 9/20/2002 #1 and 6/05/2001 #2.]

6. Securities firms keep cutting jobs - Global paring continues despite hints of recovery in the financial markets - Far from optimism, many firms believe any recovery will be precarious, by Erik Portanger, WSJ, C4.
   ...Citigroup began handing out pink slips earlier this week to midlevel and senior investment bankers and is expected to shed 50 or more jobs worldwide over the next few days, people familiar with the matter said....
   [See also UBS above.]

7. Securities firms keep cutting jobs - Global paring continues despite hints of recovery in the financial markets, by Erik Portanger, WSJ, C4.
   ...Other brokerage firms and banks, including Morgan Stanley...also have trimmed staff levels or are in the process of doing so....
   [Unspecified jobcuts.]

1. Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing made amid stiff competition, Dow Jones via WSJ, D4.
   Read-Rite Corp. filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 7 of the US Bankruptcy Code. The Fremont CA company, founded in 1981, makes magnetic recording heads for hard drives and tape drives. The market is characterized by fierce competition and rapid shifts to new generations of disk drives.... Under Chapter 7, a company liquidates its assets rather than reorganizes..\.. Cyril Yansouni, [Read-Rite]'s chairman, said the board exhausted all alternatives to preserve shareholder value and fulfill obligations to creditors and employees before deciding on the [liquidation].... Read-Rite employs about about 1,000 people, although it furloughed 60% of its US workforce in December....
   [Missed that. All we know is they had 9,500 people on 7/13/2002 #3, so no matter how you slice it, that's how many jobs will have been lost between then and the final liquidation.]

2. Chrysler to cut salaried workforce by 2% this year, AP via NYT, C4.
   ...faced with a Q2 loss of $1.1B.... The cuts will come through attrition, not layoffs..\.. The Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler...had 17,978 white-collar employees at the end of Q1 [of which] 2%...would be about 360 jobs...as Chrysler works to cut $1B in costs this year.

• AmeriCorps will cut its staff and its spending, official says, by Christopher Marquis, NYT, A19.
  WASHINGTON -...The [national community service] organization has been forced to...reduce its ranks of government-subsidized workers.... Rose Mauk, director of AmeriCorps, which provides educational grants for young community workers across the nation [= a stay-at-home PeaceCorps?], said it had been hamstrung by
  • a dispute over accounting practices,
  • a new cap on enrollments
  • and budget reductions in Congress.
  ...The program typically gives annual grants to 50,000 members, who take part in community building projects like after-school activities, tutoring and construction of low-income houses. The members, who serve up to a year, receive an award of $4,725 toward higher education as well as a modest living allowance.
  Mr. Bush, who has consistently emphasized the importance of voluntarism, has proposed expanding the program to 75,000 members.... But Congress has balked, and skeptics have capped the number of recruits at 50,000. At current financing levels, AmeriCorps officials said they would be able to support only 35,000 workers this year, a 30% reduction.
  [50000-35000= 15,000 lost makework 'jobs'.]
  That number could tumble even further, these officials said, because some of the 35,000 were holdovers from the previous year. ...AmeriCorps received $174m for grants in this fiscal year, down [27.5%] from $240m in 2002....

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Feb.1-15/2003.
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Earlier 2001 downsizings accessible via links at bottom of Dec.16-31/2001 page.
Dec.16-31/2000.
Earlier Y2000 downsizings accessible via links at bottom of Dec.16-31/2000 page.
Dec/1999.
Earlier 1999 months accessible via links at bottom of Dec/1999 page.
December/98.
Earlier months accessible via links at bottom of Dec/98 page.

For more details, our laypersons' guide to our great economic future Timesizing, Not Downsizing is available at bookstores in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass. or from *Amazon.com online.

Questions, comments, feedback? Phone 617-623-8080 (Boston) or email us.