Recent Multi-Region Layoffs
Mass Layoffs Updates for May 9, 2008
General Motors Corp. has announced that it will reduce production of big trucks and SUVs by almost 140,000 units this year. The cuts will result in the elimination of assembly shifts at four plants, and approximately 3,550 workers will be laid off as a result. This mass layoff marks the largest one time layoff at GM in recent years. The layoffs will be in Janesville, Wisconsin; Pontiac, Michigan; Flint, Michigan; and Oshawa, Ontario, according to the Times Union. Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra fell 16 percent in the first quarter of 2008.
Monaco Coach Corp. is laying off 600 workers in Oregon and Indiana. The Associated Press reported that the layoffs at the recreational vehicle company represent about 12 percent of its workforce and will affect administrative and production employees. A spokesman for the company said that the layoffs are a result of rising oil prices and declining consumer confidence. The overall demand for recreational vehicles is low.
Johnson & Johnson has announced that it will lay off 400 workers in sales jobs in the United States due to drug safety problems. The company has said that it will consolidate its marketing and sales departments at its biotechnology businesses. These layoffs are a direct result of the falling sales of Procrit, which is a type of anemia drug that stimulated the formation of red blood cells. The Associated Press reported that sales of the drug have dropped off since federal regulators put new safety warnings on these types of drugs last year.
Mass Layoffs Updates for April 25, 2008
Sub-Zero Freezer Company Inc., a manufacturer of high-end refrigeration and cooking appliances, has announced plans to lay off 235 employees at its plants in Fitchburg, Wisconsin and Phoenix, Arizona. The employees were notified that they will be laid off on or after June 13. A company spokesman said that the nation's poor economy and the slowdown in construction of high-end homes and condominiums are major factors in the layoffs, according to a report by the Wisconsin State Journal.
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Mass Layoffs Updates for April 18, 2008
Home Depot Inc. will lay off 970 workers in a reorganization of its human resource staff. The company plans to use the savings to hire more employees to work inside the stores. The company laid off 500 employees at its corporate headquarters in January. Home Depot plans to hire the equivalent of three additional full-time workers at each of its 1,970 stores nationwide, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mass Layoffs Updates for April 10, 2008
Regions Financial of Birmingham, Alabama will lay off approximately 1,300 workers in the 16 states where it does business. Regions acquired AmSouth Bank last year in a $10 billion deal, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Regions is in the same situation as other banks and has been set back by the collapse of the housing market. Its fourth-quarter profits fell 80 percent as it wrote off millions of bad loans and set aside money for the problems to come.
Wyeth has laid off approximately 1,200 sales representatives in the United States as of the end of March. The layoffs were part of a major company-wide restructuring program. The company says that drug sales are down due to increased competition from generic products, according to a Datamonitor Commentwire report. Wyeth intends to achieve a 4-6 percent reduction of its workforce by mid-year.
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The Bear Sterns Companies will lay off about 8,000 employees worldwide after its acquisition by JP Morgan Chase & Co. this month according to a Global Banking News report. JPMorgan decided to lay off the workers due to fears that downward pressure on share prices will continue.
Delta Airlines Inc. has said that it plans to get rid of 2,000 employees this year through voluntary buyouts, attrition and other initiatives. The airline is cutting domestic flights due to rising fuel costs. The Los Angeles Times reports that Delta will ground approximately 40 planes that shift its focus to more profitable international flights.
Western Union Financial Services Inc. has announce that it will close two Missouri facilities in Bridgeton and St. Charles and the closing will result in 681 layoffs. The company also plans to close an office in Dallas, Texas and lay off 117 workers there. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports that some of the employees who will be laid off due to the closings will be able to apply for jobs at other Western Union facilities. The call center and data operations jobs that will be eliminated in the U.S. will be outsourced in other countries or moved to non-union facilities.
Citigroup Inc. will lay off 185 workers in its home mortgage division due to difficulties in selling home equity products. The Associated Press reports that Citigroup is not exiting the home equity business but does plan to shift its focus to the support of existing Citibank, corporate and Smith Barney customers.
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Pilgrim's Pride Corp. has announced that it will close a chicken-processing plant and six of its distributions centers. The Sun-Sentinel reported that the closings would put 1,100 people out of work. The company says that there may be other closings in the near future as they announced that the processing plant in Siler City, North Carolina would be shut down and distribution centers in Plant City, Florida, Oskaloosa, Iowa, Jackson, Mississippi, Nashville, Tennessee, and Cincinnati, Ohio would also close.
Ford Motor Company has announced that it will be cutting shifts at its factories in Chicago, Louisville, and Cleveland due to a slowing demand for its vehicles. Due to the shift cuts, Ford will be laying off 2,500 workers at the three factories. The Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable and the Taurus X crossover vehicle are made at the Chicago factory. At the Louisville plant, the Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer SUVs are assembled. Beginning this summer, each plant will have only one shift according to an Associated Pres report. At the Cleveland plant, a six-cylinder, 3.0-liter engine is manufactured. That plant will cut back to one shift in late April.
Due to the effects of a strike by a General Motors Corp. axle supplier, Lear Corporation has laid off 1,000 workers at seven facilities, according to a report by Ottawa Citizen. Lear Corp. is the second-largest manufacturer of automotive seats.
PRC, LLC will lay off about 850 workers as it closes four Midwest call centers and makes cutbacks at a fifth. The Plantation, Florida-based company, formerly known as Precision Response, filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Workers in Des Moines, Cedar Falls and Marshalltown, Iowa and Denver, Colorado will be laid off. The Miami Herald reports that workers at the company's Florida facilities will not be affected in the layoffs.
Starbucks Corporation is laying off 600 workers according to the Sun-Sentinel. The layoffs represent less than 1 percent of the coffee giant's workforce. Starbucks recently closed all of their stores for 3 hours to conduct staff training in an effort to provide a better product and therefore boost sales.
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Kimball Hill Homes Inc. of Rolling Meadows, Illinois announced on February 27, 2008 that it would be taking two actions as part of a strategy to reposition its business to combat toll of the depressing housing market. According to a report by Business Wire, Kimball will be exiting the Florida housing market. The company will complete all homes in Florida that are currently under construction by the end of the year. Kimball will also cut 75 jobs at its corporate offices in Rolling Meadows, Illinois and other locations. Because of the collapse of the housing market, reduced home prices and stricter lending policies, the company decided that it could no longer compete in Florida under the current market conditions. The company will continue building homes in Illinois, Texas, Nevada and California.
General Motors Corporation has announced plans to lay off 930 workers, according to a report by The Associated Press State & Local Wire. The auto finance business will be restructuring to cut expenses as a result of the recent tightening of the credit market. GMAC LLC will merge 20 U.S. and Canadian offices into five regional business centers located in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh and Toronto. The layoffs will happen by the end of the year.
Starbucks Corporation has announced the layoff of 600 people as the company restructures operations, according to the Los Angeles Times. The company seeks to turn business around after experiencing a decline in business. Most of the layoffs were of support personnel.
Wilsons The Leather Experts Inc. in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota announced that it will close up to 160 of its Leather Experts, Inc. mall stores and will lay off 64 workers at the corporate headquarters, overseas offices and distribution center and 938 workers at the stores. The company will keep 100 stores open, but they will be remodeled to a new "studio" concept that will create brand-driven stores focusing on women's fashion accessories. The company plans to have the remodels completed by August according to a Pioneer Press report.
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Package delivery firm DHL Express USA has announced that it will lay off 600 workers, the Miami Herald reports. The job cuts amount to approximately 3 percent of the company's employees. DHL will lay off people in management, administrative and back-office positions across the country. The company says that the job cuts will not affect the company's service to the public.
Silver State Helicopters, Inc. of North Las Vegas, Nevada has declared bankruptcy. The helicopter flight training school has closed and laid off 750 employees at 33 locations. Students of the school in 18 states are now responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in uninsured student loans and several are planning to file lawsuits. The students claim that an executive of the company, Jerry Airola, operated the flight school as a pyramid scheme, according to The New York Times. By filing bankruptcy, the flight school wriggled out of a binding-arbitration proceeding meant to settle the complaints of 40 students who filed an earlier lawsuit accusing the company of fraudulent business practices. Silver State charged each student approximately $70,000 tuition.
Buffets Holdings Inc. has shut down 51 of its restaurants and laid off between 2,200 and 2,300 workers just a month after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The St. Louis Business Journal reports that the company operates 626 restaurants in 39 states under the Old Country Buffet, HomeTown Buffet, Ryan's and Fire Mountain names, and 11 Tahoe Joe's Famous Steakhouse steak-buffet restaurants.
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H&R Block Inc. plans to lay off 505 corporate staff positions in order to reduce its overhead expenses by $110 million per year, according to The Kansas City Star. H&R Block is the largest tax preparation company in the United States, but has been hurt by the subprime mortgage crisis that has caused the impending demise of its mortgage subsidiary. H&R Block employees who work in human resources, information technology, and legal and marketing departments will be let go. The company may lay off some additional workers at its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri but the layoffs will not affect those employees working in the tax-preparation division.
U.S. Foodservice Inc. has announced that it will close its plant in Mesquite, Texas in March 2008. When the plant closes, 138 workers will be laid off. The company will begin the layoffs on March 14th and continue until March 28th when the plant is closed permanently. U.S. Foodservice is also closing a plant in Fairfield, Ohio and laying off 148 workers there. The company has more than 27,000 employees and distributes to more than 250,000 clients, including hospitals, schools, restaurants, and hotels. It is also the second-largest foodservice distributor in the United States.
Schlumberger Limited, the world's largest oil-field-services provider, has announced that it will lay off several hundred workers in North America as customers shift exploration spending to the Eastern Hemisphere. A company spokesperson said that they will lay off fewer than 500 workers.
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Bank of America Corporation has announced that it will lay off 650 employees and make other changes to adjust to the effects of a global credit crisis. The employees will be laid off from the bank's investment banking and global markets businesses. Bank of America will also sell its equity prime brokerage business to a leading rival in the business but will keep its other prime brokerage businesses such as foreign exchange. The banking giant is also cutting back its structured products business, which includes collateralized debt obligations.
Mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc. said it will cut its work force by 24 percent, and lay off 2,403 employees in order to cut costs and try to ride out the housing slump and overcome problems selling home loans to investors. The layoffs include a significant reduction in temporary vendor staffs, mainly in India. As a result of the layoffs, IndyMac is also closing wholesale mortgage lending centers in Tampa, Florida, Philadelphia, Boston, and Columbia, South Carolina, in order to consolidate operations in other locations. The company ended 2007 with 9,938 employees. IndyMac was ranked eighth largest among mortgage loan servicers in 2007. The company said the job cuts were necessary because the company still faces a lack of demand for home loans on the secondary market and tighter access to capital due to the credit crunch that followed the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.
Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. in New York, New York has announced that it will lay off 1,300 employees in its residential mortgage lending business. Lehman has suspended all wholesale and correspondent lending activities at Aurora Loan Services, its Alt-A lender based in Littleton, Colorado. Aurora will continue to originate loans directly to customers and maintain its servicing business, Lehman said. The company will close three operational centers in California, Florida, and New Jersey, while Aurora's Colorado operations will be consolidated into the Littleton office.
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Citigroup, Inc. of New York, the largest bank in the U.S., is expected to lay off as many as 37,000 people. The layoffs are a result of a shaky year in 2007 in which the former CEO left the company amid billions of dollars in writedowns. Citi has lost almost 50% of its share value over the past year.
RBC Centura Banks Inc. will acquire Alabama National BanCorp. in early February and jobs will be lost. When the bank's system conversions are complete in late spring and early summer employees will be faced with layoffs. The company has not announced exactly how many people will lose their jobs. Alabama National BanCorp has already cut positions such as back-office jobs in human resource departments and check processing centers. These jobs will be consolidated into the new structure of operations after the acquisition. Employees in Alabama, Georgia and Florida have been and will be laid off.
The asset-management division of Wachovia Corporation, Evergreen Investments, has announced plans to reorganized its fixed-income business and has laid off an undisclosed number of workers. Employees in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Jacksonville, Florida were affected in the layoffs which were said to not be related to cost-cutting.
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Regional bank KeyCorp has announced that it expects to post a loss of 5 cents per share in the fourth quarter of 2007, will exit certain businesses and lay off 1,040 workers because of the slumping housing market. KeyCorp attributed their losses to miserable conditions in the commercial and residential real estate markets, primarily in Florida and California. The company has said that they will no longer do business with non-relationship homebuilders outside of its 13-state community-banking operations. KeyCorp says it will also exit its home-improvement lending and payroll services businesses.
LendingTree, LLC, based in Charlotte, North Carolina has laid off workers for the third time in 2007. In this round of layoffs 220 employees at the company's three main U.S. locations in Charlotte, North Carolina, Irvine, California and Jacksonville, Florida were let go. LendingTree acts as an online matching service for people seeking home loans and is also a home mortgage lender. Earlier in the year, LendingTree laid off 440 employees in May and another 250 employees were let go in September.
All of the 400 nationwide Pure Weight Loss centers will close on January 4, leaving all of the employees without jobs. The company has decided to completely go out of business. The company formerly known and heavily advertised as L.A. Weight Loss suffered from a split of two key business partners three years ago and then changed its name to Pure Weight Loss Centers last summer. The company has said it was closing down due to a number of factors, including fierce competition in the weight loss market on the Internet, the introduction of the over-the-counter weight loss pill Alli, a difficult economic environment and competition from other commercial diet centers.
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Pfizer Inc. has plans to begin outsourcing as much as 30 percent of its manufacturing. The pharmaceutical giant currently outsources 15 percent of its manufacturing and plans to double that number in order to cut costs. Manufacturing plants in Brooklyn, New York and Omaha, Nebraska will be closed. Pfizer has plans to cut its worldwide workforce by 10 percent.
Due to the increasing popularity of generic drugs, some areas of the pharmaceutical market are suffering. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Inc., the manufacturer of Plavix, has announced that it will begin a broad restructuring and close more than half of its manufacturing plants, forcing a mass layoff of 4,300 employees. The company is aiming for a cost savings of $1.5 billion by 2010. The layoffs represent 10 percent of the company's staff.
Dow Chemical Co. has announced that it will close a number of plants and lay off about 1,000 workers to cut costs and direct capital toward businesses with better growth prospects. The company has suffered because of soaring hydrocarbon feedstock and energy costs and has been trying to improve its earnings through a series of joint ventures and by expanding its more profitable specialty businesses. Dow has announced that it will exit the automotive sealers business in North America, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America in nine to 18 months and explore options for its business in Europe.
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The Home Depot Inc. will lay off 750 people in the Tampa Bay, Florida area and is expected to close its Brandon call center on January 28, 2008. Additionally, the company will close 200 smaller sites in Chicago and Dallas. The call centers handled quotes and follow-up calls for customers who order window, door and flooring installations at Home Depot stores. After the call centers close, local store employees will take up the slack and handle these calls. After the closings, there will be eight remaining Home Depot call centers left open across the country. The company says that those call centers will stay open for now.
Chevy Chase Bank, F.S.B. has announced that it will be laying off more than 300 employees as it cuts back its banking hours and adjusts to lower mortgage demand brought on by the housing market slowdown. More than 200 of the layoffs come from a change in banking hours. Around 100 layoffs will occur in its mortgage operations. Chevy Chase underwrites billions of dollars in home loans throughout the country, including many in California. Chevy Chase, which is privately held, operates 287 branches and employs 5,000 people, the vast majority in the Washington area. Its branches include 233 in traditional retail settings and 54 inside Giant Food stores.
GMAC Financial Services has announced that it is restructuring its mortgage operations, Residential Capital, LLC, as the housing market and mortgage industry continues to crumble. ResCap will streamline its operations and revise its cost structure, which will enhance its flexibility and allow it to scale operations up or down more rapidly to meet changing market conditions. On Oct. 15, 2007, a restructuring plan was approved that will include ResCap reducing its current worldwide workforce of 12,000 associates by approximately 25 percent, which means approximately 3,000 associates will be laid off. The majority of the lay offs will happen during the fourth quarter of 2007. This reduction in workforce is in addition to the measures undertaken in the first half of 2007 in which 2,000 jobs were cut. The reduction in ResCap's workforce was influenced by sharp downturns in the U.S. residential real estate markets and the global dislocation of the mortgage finance and credit markets.
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AOL has cut its global work force by an additional 2,000 jobs as it continues to make the transition from an Internet access provider to an online advertising company. The mass layoff of 20 percent of its work force comes on top of 5,000 positions cut last fall, after AOL said it would try to boost traffic to its ad-supported Web sites by giving away AOL.com e-mail accounts, software and other features once reserved for paying subscribers. The cuts affected about 1,200 positions in the United States, including 750 in northern Virginia, which has long been AOL's headquarters. AOL recently announced that it was moving its headquarters to New York to be closer to the media advertising industry. Most of the U.S. employees affected in this latest round of job cuts have already laid off, while the job cuts abroad are expected by year's end. Last year's reductions were mostly in customer-service and marketing personnel as AOL opted to stop producing and distributing its annoying trial discs aimed at luring new customers to its Internet access subscription services. The latest cuts were expected to affect employees across the board. Workers at AOL's Dulles, Va., location had speculated for weeks that big layoffs were coming. The coming layoffs became even more obvious when workers reported seeing large pallets of empty cardboard shipping boxes arrive at an AOL warehouse, apparently in preparation for the newly unemployed workers to empty their desks.
Gap Inc. recently announced the mass layoff of 500 employees in light of the clothing company's shrinking revenue. Gap has already laid off 1,500 workers so far this year, in relation to a three-year sales slump. The San Francisco based company says that the layoffs would bring company-wide expenses in line with the reduction of revenues. The most recent layoff is in relation to the closure of the experimental Forth and Towne chain; Gap also owns Old Navy and Banana Republic.
Sun Microsystems analysts recently announced the potential layoff of between 1,300 and 2,000 employees as part of a restructuring plan to rebound in an increasingly competitive and consolidation-prone technology sector. Sun provides network computing infrastructure solutions that include computer systems, software, storage and other services. Santa Clara based Sun has already staged 3,800 layoffs since June 2006.
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Monster Worldwide Inc., an online job site, recently announced the mass layoff of 800 jobs as part of a restructuring plan related to lower-than-expected quarterly earnings. The layoffs will constitute 15 percent of Monster's current full-time staff. Monster says that the layoffs will occur mainly in North America and outside its sales functions.
IBM recently announced the mass layoff of 450 employees at plants across the nation. Most of the layoffs will occur in the technology development and manufacturing and will occur in the mid-Hudson Valley in New York State, with the largest cuts in Fishkill, Poughkeepsie, and Burlington, Vermont. The layoffs are attributed to the recent merger of IBMs manufacturing and development of microprocessors and is now trying to increase productivity and efficiency and reduce duplication in those areas.
AstraZeneca recently announced the mass layoff of 4,600 employees as part of a plan to generate annual cost savings of more than $900 million by 2010. The London-based pharmaceutical giant has its headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. The company had already announced plans to cut an additional 3,000 jobs in February, bringing the mass layoff total to 7,600. The 7,600 positions represent 11 percent of the company's workforce. A company CEO said the latest layoffs would come from European sales and marketing departments but also include employees working regulatory affairs and in certain undisclosed disease areas.
General Electric Co. recently announced the mass layoff of about 1,200 employees as it sells its WMC Mortgage subprime lending business. The layoffs are being attributed to soaring defaults in the subprime lending market which has closed 50 subprime lenders in all. The layoffs were conducted before the decision was made to sell WMC.
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Prudential Financial Inc. recently announced the mass layoff of 420 jobs in 13 locations worldwide as it closes its small stock research and sales business. Business analysts consider the department to be a "distraction" with little value. The Newark, New Jersey based company said that operations at Prudential Equity Group would be severely diminished worldwide. Prudential Equity has offices in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Atlanta, Boston and Kansas City, Missouri.
Dell recently announced its plans to lay off approximately 10 percent of its work force over the next year. The mass layoff would affect approximately 8,800 people. The chief executive and founder of Dell said the layoffs would be undertaken in an attempt to "turn the company around" after it reported a flat net income and a 2.8 percent growth from one year earlier.
Circuit City Stores Inc. recently announced the mass layoff of about 800 positions nationwide. The layoffs will involve about 200 positions at its corporate offices and about one manager at each of its 654 U.S. stores. The layoffs are being orchestrated as part of a $110 million cost-savings plan. Two months ago, the company laid off 3,400 store employees, replacing them with lower-paid workers, and trimmed about 130 corporate information-technology jobs by outsourcing the work to IBM.
The international information technology consultant Unisys Corp. recently announced the layoffs of 950 jobs in, predominately, the US and UK. The layoffs are being conducted in order to tap a cheaper labor market overseas and are in addition to the company's job cuts of 5,600 announced last year. Unisys said its restructuring action in 2006 and the first-quarter of this year should save more than $340 million by the second half of 2007.
Auto parts supplier ArvinMeritor recently announced it will close 13 plants in North America and Europe and will lay off 2,800 employees. ArvinMeritor has 110 manufacturing plants and 27,500 employees worldwide. The spokeswoman of the Michigan based corporation said that the company has not released information about which North American plants would be affected. Market researchers expect the mass layoffs to be made in relation to the reduced sale of heavy trucks. They explain that new emissions regulations are expected to drive the cost of these vehicles upward and their sale downward.
IBM recently cut seven jobs at its Essex Junction, Vermont facility - an example of a larger action that included more than 1,000 layoffs across the country. A company spokesman described the layoffs as part of a periodic restructuring while a union representative called the layoffs part of an ongoing shift of jobs overseas. 1,315 workers were laid off across the country, according to the national coordinator for the Alliance at IBM Union. IBM, an international corporation that employs 355,766 employees worldwide did not release this number. IBM has 130,000 employees nationwide.
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to lay off about 1,000 store-management jobs at its Sam's Club wholesale unit as part of a rare nationwide job cut. The world's largest retailer plans to consolidate about 3,000 salaried-manager positions at 580 U.S. Sam's Club stores. The restructuring is being done to improve customer service and management flexibility rather than to cut costs.
Pennsylvania-based Kraft Foods recently announced it will lay off workers from its plant in Lehigh County. The company plans to consolidate its processed cheese production into three Midwestern plants by next summer. Kraft says it does not know how many workers will be affected, but a news source quotes that more 200 jobs "hang in the balance." There are currently 21 salaried and 213 hourly positions in the processed cheese department.
Ford Motor Co. recently announced plans to eliminate 25,000 to 30,000 jobs in North America and to close 14 plants by 2012. The planned mass layoffs are a result of a long term decline in revenues. Ford reported a full-year net loss of $12.7 billion in 2006.
Circuit City Stores, Inc. has announced a mass layoff of 3,400 workers nationwide in an attempt to raise profits. Circuit City, the second largest electronics retail chain in the U.S., will also close 70 stores for an additional loss of 400 jobs next February. The initial 3,400 lost jobs comprise 8% of Circuit City's current labor force. According to a company spokesman, the layoffs are attributed to worker pay exceeding the normal market rates and that laid off workers may be allowed to reapply for their old jobs at a lower rate of pay.
Citigroup plans to lay off 17,000 workers in an attempt to boost market value for its shareholders. The company's net income declined 13 percent to $21.5 billion last year, down from $24.6 billion in 2005. The nation's biggest bank is also moving another 9,500 jobs to "lower-cost locations" in an effort to improve the bottom line for current and potential investors. Industrial analysts are claiming that such restructuring may hurt Citigroup in the long run, arguing that the company should focus its efforts on increasing its revenues rather than creating job layoffs to shave off expenses. 43% of Citigroup's layoffs and changes are expected in the United States, with the rest occurring overseas.
Tower Automotive will lay off 120 employees and close its Kendallville, Indiana plant by November. Exactly 90 workers will lose their jobs in May and June while the remaining 30 will remain until the plant actually shuts down. The closing of the plant is part of a restructuring plan the company issued after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.
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Around 140 employees of the Lancaster Glass Plant in Lancaster, Ohio will lose their jobs. The parent company Lancaster Colony Corporation announced the production of industrial glass would be phased out by June 30. The company originally called Lancaster Lens Company and was established in 1910 made the glass reflector for the Statue of Liberty torch in 1934.
FormTech Industries announced it would close its Canal Fulton, Ohio plant and terminate 100 employees. The company, which is based in Royal Oak, Michigan, has six other plants, which will remain open. The automotive supplier expects the mass layoff will be completed by June. While FormTech is closing the plant due to declining sales in the automotive industry, some of the employees slated for layoff may be offered jobs at the other facilities.
About 100 jobs were cut from the Internal Revenue Service in the last couple months. Specifically, employees from the gift and estate tax return group were laid off. The mass layoff came as the number of estate tax returns has dwindled recently. Most of the former employees accepted buyout offers. Some tax attorneys have voiced their concerns about the reduction in workforce in that estate tax audits may be less accurate.
CompUSA is closing 126 stores nationwide over the next three months. The restructuring process will result in some mass layoff notices in order to increase the company's cash flow by $440 million. Company officials did not announce the exact number of layoffs expected yet. It was revealed that all stores in Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri and Nebraska would be closed.
Abbott Laboratories, based in Illinois, announced plans to eliminate several hundred sales positions nationwide. The company cites its integration of Kos Pharmaceuticals as the reason for the mass layoff. Spokesman Scott Stoeffei says they are identifying which overlapping sales staff to terminate and will notify those employees this week.
Gap Incorporated announced plans to close all its Forth & Towne stores, resulting in a mass layoff of 550 workers. The stores were part of an 18-month pilot for a "chic" new style of clothing. The stores are not proving to be a profitable investment so the retailer will go back to focusing only on Gap and Old Navy stores. The 19 stores nationwide will close by the end of June.
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Citizens Gas and Coke Utility of Indianapolis told 300 employees a possible mass layoff will happen in the next two months. The company is considering selling the plant and has been considering the idea for many months. The only reason given for the possible sale is that the facility does not fit into the company's long-term strategy plans.
Job cuts at Gwinner, North Dakota's anchor business may impact the city's economy. Bobcat Company employs more people than are residents in the town. The skid-steer loader plant laid off 142 positions and city leaders are concerned about the future plans for the plant. Bobcat employs around 2500 workers in the state of North Dakota and is a unit of Ingersoll-Rand Company Ltd.
BorgWarner will close its automobile parts plant in Muncie, Indiana by April 2009 when its United Auto Workers (UAW) contract expires. The workforce reduction will occur gradually, but the company made no other details about the timeline available. The mass layoff is taking place because Ford truck sales have declined and BorgWarner main product line includes transfer cases for the automaker.
Eastman Kodak Company modified its layoff estimate from 27,000 to up to 30,000 employees. The restructuring program was first announced in January 2004 as the company planned to modify its business structure. The original mass layoff estimate of 25,000 to 27,000 was issued in August 2006. The announcement did not mention when the mass layoff would be completed.
DaimlerChrysler AG plans to lay off 10,000 hourly employees as part of a restructuring plan to be announced February 14. The Detroit News reported that Chrysler will close Newark, Delaware and Detroit, Michigan plants. No other details about this mass layoff are available yet.
Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (D&B) announced plans to layoff up to 400 employees by the end of 2007. The mass layoff will impact employees company-wide as the business information company begins in a restructuring program expected to save the D&B more than $80 million in operating costs.
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Layoffs announced yesterday totaled 289 among Time Inc.'s various magazines including People, Time, Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated. The country's largest magazine publisher notified 117 employees from the business side of the company. Executives also gave notices to 86 editorial employees and hope 86 more will volunteer for buyout packages. The cuts will affect locations in Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C.
The parent company of the Nielsen television ratings service, VNU, announced a mass layoff to affect 4,000 employees globally. The job costs will cut company costs by 10% as part of a reorganization prompted by the company's buyout from a private-equity consortium this year. Company officials have not revealed the timing of the mass layoff or which workforce locations will be impacted by the terminations.