AstraZeneca slashes 1,150 U.S. sales jobs

AstraZeneca is cutting nearly a quarter of its U.S. sales force in a second wave of redundancies in as many months as it seeks to reduce costs.



Britain's second biggest drugmaker said on Wednesday it would cut about 1,150 sales representative and management jobs at a cost of between $50 million and $100 million, charged in the fourth quarter.



Rich Fante, president of AstraZeneca U.S., said it was a difficult decision to make the reductions, which represent 24 percent of the U.S. sales organization and come on top of 400 job U.S. losses announced in October.



"The changes we are making, however, will help us deliver better results for our business and, most importantly, continue delivering on our mission of patient health," he said.



Since restructuring costs are not included in the company's core earnings measure, the cost of the cuts will not have any impact on its guidance for core earnings per share for 2011.



Generic competition and pricing pressures are already weighing on AstraZeneca's sales in the world's biggest market and things are about to get tougher.



Over the next few years, analysts forecast a steady decline in sales at the London-based group because patents expire on big sellers like Nexium for heartburn and schizophrenia drug Seroquel.



What is more, it faces a major challenge to its biggest-selling medicine Crestor, following the arrival of cheap generic copies of Pfizer's market-leading cholesterol pill Lipitor, which hit the market at the end of November.



AstraZeneca has relatively few new drugs to replace such blockbusters, leaving its sales line exposed and its management under pressure to cut costs wherever possible.



The latest round of job cuts, which are expected to be finalized by early February 2012, are in addition to the wide-ranging program of 8,000 job cuts, designed to be implemented over several years, that AstraZeneca announced in January 2010.



The likes of Pfizer, Merck and Novartis have also announced major job cuts but the scale of the retrenchment has been particularly severe at AstraZeneca.



The impact of the latest U.S. changes will vary by geography and selling teams and a company spokeswoman said AstraZeneca was looking to make greater use of alternative methods for promoting its medicines, such as online tools.




Source : Reuters
 [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Mizuho net falls 25 percent, plans 3,000 job cuts

Mizuho Financial Group maintained its full-year net profit forecast on Monday after reporting that first-half profit fell 25.4 percent, weighed down by the absence of hefty bond trading gains that lifted its profits the previous year.
Japan's top three banks are announcing their first-half results on Monday, and Mizuho, the second-largest by assets, had been expected to lag rivals.

Results of the other two, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, are expected to show they are on track to beat their full-year forecasts.

Unlike their Western rivals, Japanese banks largely escaped the brunt of Europe's debt crisis due to limited exposure to the region, while bad-loan costs remained low at home as the number of bankruptcies in Japan continued to decline.

Mizuho said net profit was 254.67 billion yen ($3.3 billion) for April-September, down from 341.76 billion yen in the same period last year. Second-quarter profit fell to 158.31 billion yen from 191.91 billion yen in the year-ago period, according to Reuters calculations from first-half and first-quarter figures.

For the full year to next March, the bank kept its net profit forecast at 460 billion yen, above an estimate of a 433.9 billion yen by Thomson Reuters Starmine's SmartEstimate.

The bank also said on Monday that it plans to cut 3,000 jobs, or about 5 percent of its work force, by March 2016 through the merger of its corporate and retail banking units.

Shares of Mizuho have fallen 33 percent so far this year, compared with a 16 percent drop in the benchmark Nikkei average.


Source : Reuters
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Sony to close Japan plant, lay off 100 contract workers

Sony Corp will merge two of its wholly owned manufacturing subsidiaries, resulting in the closure of an equipment plant north of Tokyo and the eventual layoff of about 100 contract workers, the company said on Friday.

The move, which takes effect on April 1 next year, comes as analysts and investors urge the company to pull off a drastic restructuring of its loss-making television division.

Sony Manufacturing Systems, which makes factory equipment, will be absorbed by Sony EMCS, the electronics giant's main domestic manufacturing subsidiary, which makes items such as televisions and computers at various sites around Japan.

The 411 regular workers at Sony Manufacturing Systems will be kept on at a different site, but 100 non-regular workers will not have their contracts renewed.

The company is considering selling off the buildings and land at the Saitama site, about 60 km (36 miles) north of Tokyo, a Sony spokesman said.



Source : reuters  [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

BAE Systems to cut nearly 3,000 UK jobs

Europe's biggest defense contractor BAE Systems said it will cut nearly 3,000 jobs in Britain as smaller global defense budgets hit orders for its fighter jets.

BAE said the four partner nations in the Eurofighter Typhoon program -- the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain -- were slowing production rates to help ease their budget pressures, affecting the workload at a number of sites.

The company, one of the largest prime contractors in the U.S, said production was also slowing on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet, a U.S. program led by Lockheed Martin for which BAE produces the tailplane.
"Pressure on the U.S. defense budget and top level program changes mean the anticipated increase in F-35 production rates will be slower than originally planned, again impacting on our expected workload," said BAE in a statement on Tuesday.

The 2,942 job cuts from Britain's biggest manufacturer are a blow to the Conservative-led coalition government, which is seeking to rebalance the economy away from an over-reliance on financial services jobs in the overheated south-east of England.

Latest figures show unemployment rose at its fastest pace in two years, totaling 7.9 percent of the workforce.
Trades Union Congress chief Brendan Barber, speaking at the opposition Labour party conference in Liverpool in north-west England, said the job cuts were "yet another devastating body blow to our manufacturing base."

Many of the job losses will come from the north-west, traditionally a center of British manufacturing. Two - in Warton and Samlesbury and involved in Typhoon and F-35 production - are based in Lancashire.
A third site in north-east England, Brough, makes the Hawk training aircraft. BAE said it had begun consultation on ending manufacturing capability at Brough, which also runs a structural testing facility. Around 400 posts will remain there from a current workforce of 1,300.

Critics of the government say its austerity program is choking off growth and risks plunging the country back into another recession.

Unite, the biggest trade union representing BAE workers, vowed to fight the lay-offs.
"The government cannot sit on its hands and allow these highly skilled jobs to disappear," it said.
"It's a dark day for thousands of skilled men and women across the country and it is a dark day for British manufacturing. BAE Systems have dealt a hammer blow to the UK defense industry and Unite is determined to fight the cuts."

Weapons makers globally are bracing for more cuts in defense spending sparked partly by this summer's debt-ceiling deal in the United States -- the world's biggest arms market.
British industry body ADS said it feared that the job losses would be "only the tip of the iceberg," citing a fall in government defense spending from 10 percent 20 years ago to 5 percent currently.

"With such cutbacks under governments that have included all three major parties this is not a party political issue but a matter of the national interest that has a profound impact on the capabilities of both our Armed Forces and our industrial base," ADS chairman Ian Godden said in a statement.
Howard Wheeldon, Senior Strategist at BGC Partners, said he had believed for some time that such a course was inevitable.

"While the loss...will be a serious blow to hopes of rebuilding the manufacturing skills base as a public company BAE must in terms of employment cut its coat according to the cloth available."
The U.S. defense department is cutting at least $350 billion from previously projected spending, and additional cuts could kick in if Congress fails to find more deficit reductions by year-end.
Britain, meanwhile, slashed its defense budget by 8 percent last year to help reduce its deficit, hitting BAE, which makes around a fifth of its revenue in the UK.

BAE, which has already laid off around 15,000 employees worldwide over the last two years, reported a decline in first half pretax profit in July.

The company, which has a 33 percent stake in the Eurofighter joint venture company alongside EADS and Finmeccanica, is continuing to pursue Typhoon sales in India, Japan, Oman and Malaysia and has said exporting the fighter aircraft remains a priority.

British and U.S. arms suppliers have been battling to win new business in emerging defense markets as they look to offset the belt-tightening at home.



Source : Reuters  [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

HSBC sheds 30,000 jobs, posts surprise profit rise

HSBC will shed 30,000 jobs as it retreats from countries where it is struggling to compete, Europe's biggest bank said on Monday after it reported a surprise rise in first-half profit.

Shares in HSBC rose over 4 percent after it unveiled first-half pretax profits of $11.5 billion, up from $11.1 billion a year ago and better than the $10.8 billion average in a Reuters poll of analysts.

The bank also said it had cut 5,000 jobs following restructuring of operations in Latin America, the United States, Britain, France and the Middle East and that it would cut another 25,000 between now and 2013.
"There will be further job cuts," Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver told reporters on a conference call. "There will be something like 25,000 roles eliminated between now and the end of 2013."

The cuts equate to roughly 10 percent of HSBC's total workforce. They come on top of planned reductions in overall headcount in a program of disposals that also forms part of a plan to focus on HSBC's Asian operations.

The bank is reversing a strategy that had been criticized for "planting flags" around the world.

Gulliver's far-reaching plan unveiled three months ago aims to slash costs and he intends to sell, shut or slim down retail banking in 39 countries.

HSBC said on Sunday it would sell 195 U.S. branches to First Niagara Financial for about $1 billion in cash, and close another 13 of the 470 sites it had.

The bank also intends to sell HSBC's U.S. credit card portfolio, which has more than $30 billion in assets, a move which would free up capital. Capital One Financial Corp and Wells Fargo are among the bidders, sources have said.

Another suitor could be Barclays.

HSBC is the first of Britain's big banks to report for the quarter. Rivals are also cutting jobs and shaking up their business model as the euro zone debt crisis has hit fixed income trading revenues hard and tougher regulations are hurting returns for investors.

The bank on Monday highlighted risks to global economic recovery from increased regulation, particularly as governments grapple with sovereign debt crises and try to plug holes in their budgets.

"The pace and quantum of regulatory reform continues to increase at the same time as the global economy appears to be losing momentum in its recovery," HSBC said.



Source : Reuters
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Blackberry RIM Cuts 2,000 Jobs

Research in Motion said it will cut 2,000 jobs (approximately 11% of the company’s workforce) and reorganize upper management.

The company’s COO Don Morrison will retire, and Thorsten Heins will take over the expanded role of COO, product and sales.

The move comes after weak financial results in Q1 and an even worse outlook for the future. As a result of the bleak Q1 report, RIM’s sharestook a beating, dropping 20% overnight.

Once a dominant force in the smartphone market, RIM recently fell to third place behind Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The imminent layoffs are necessary to keep the company financially sound, but RIM will have to rethink its entire smartphone and tablet strategy to catch up with its rivals.

Source : Mashable
 [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Pfizer to cut 6,000 jobs

Drugmaker Pfizer Inc will cut 6,000 jobs, or 18 per cent of the workforce, at its 78 manufacturing plants over the next five years as it pares back operations following last year's purchase of rival Wyeth.

The firm plans to cease operations at eight plants in Ireland, Puerto Rico and the US by late 2015 and cut activities at six factories in those countries, plus Germany and Britain.

Pfizer had 40 manufacturing sites before acquiring more than three dozen Wyeth facilities in the October merger.

The affected plants make conventional pills, injectable medicines, biotech drugs and consumer healthcare products.
Pfizer will wind down their operations over the next 18 months to five years, depending on business considerations such as the time required to transfer product manufacturing.

The firm said in November it would close six research sites and trim jobs in the US and Britain as part of its absorption of Wyeth. It then began a six-month study of how to reconfigure its manufacturing sites.

"We have a complex network of manufacturing plants, with excess capacity that is not good for costs," Nat Ricciardi, Pfizer's president of manufacturing, said in an interview.

Pfizer can be more competitive, both in its operations and drug pricing, by streamlining its plants and improving their processes, Ricciardi said.

"It's not disproportionately Wyeth," Ricciardi said, adding that many legacy Pfizer plants and employees are on the target list. Half of the plants slated for ceased operations are legacy Pfizer sites, the firm said.

One of the biggest incentives for companies to merge is the ability to cut overlapping operations and employees. Pfizer said it is on track to realise total cost reductions from the deal of US$4 billion to US$5 billion (US$1 = RM3.24) by 2012.

Pfizer in early 2009, at the time the Wyeth deal was announced, said it expected to cut 15 per cent of the combined workforce - or almost 20,000 jobs.

The firm is counting on the savings to help offset expected plunging sales of its US$12 billion a year Lipitor cholesterol fighter, which will face generic competition late next year.


Source : BusinessTimes

[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Microsoft cuts 800 jobs, completes layoff plan

Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it is cutting a further 800 jobs across its operations, on top of 5,000 jobs already eliminated under a plan to reduce costs that was announced in January.
A spokesman for the world's largest software firm said the latest job cuts are spread across the company's global operations, but about 200 are in and around its headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft originally had planned to cut 5,000 jobs, or about 5 percent out of 96,000, before June 2010. The Microsoft spokesman said that plan has been expanded with the new layoffs and is now complete, well ahead of schedule.
As of October 23, Microsoft had 91,005 employees worldwide, according to its website.


Source : Reuters
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Layoffs rise first time in 6 months; 97,000 job cuts in July

Job cuts announced by US employers jumped 31 per cent in July to over 97,000, increasing for the first time in six months, warning of a further hike in downsizing activity by the last quarter of the year, a report said today.

After falling to a 15-month low in June planned job cuts announced by US employers jumped to 97,373 in July. It was the first increase in monthly job cuts since January, global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc said here in its latest report.

"After June's surprisingly low job-cut total, a July rebound was not entirely unexpected. While there are signs that the economy is stabilising and the pace of layoffs slowing, we are still a long way from a full recovery. In fact, monthly job cuts are likely to return to levels in excess of 100,000 by the fourth quarter," Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John Challenger said.

Job cuts had fallen 33 per cent in June to 74,393, the lowest monthly total since March 2008. The July total was 6 per cent lower than the same month a year ago, when employers announced 1,03,312 cuts. So far this year, employers have announced 9,94,048 job cuts, 72 per cent more than 5,79,260 layoffs through the first seven months of 2008.

The July surge in job cuts was led by firms in the transportation industry, which announced plans to reduce payrolls by 27,954 positions, a five-fold increase from the June layoff total of 5,587.

The telecommunications sector also experienced an increase in layoffs last month with job cuts surging to 17,601 in July from 802 in June.

Meanwhile, the automotive sector, which leads all other industries in year-to-date job cuts with 1,22,212 layoffs has seen layoff announcements decline in each of the last three months. These companies announced 2,716 job cuts in July.

"Declining layoffs in the automotive industry may not be indicative of a turnaround. Instead, these employers simply may not have any room for additional job cuts if they hope to build new fleets of more eco-friendly cars," Challenger added.

With consumer and business spending at a standstill transportation companies have little choice but to make further cutbacks in staffing, it said, adding, that a surge in hiring could take place around the holidays.

Other sectors which saw downsizing during July are government/non-profit (7,131), industrial goods (6,548) and financial (5,030). While economic conditions and cost-cutting claimed over 58,000 jobs, voluntary severance led to 15,070 job cuts in July.

Employers also announced plans to hire a total of 17,183 employees with retail (14,200) and aerospace/defence (1,160) leading the pack.

Source : Business Standard
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Lockheed Martin to Cut 800 Space Systems Jobs

Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense contractor, said it plans to cut about 800 jobs at its space systems division by the end of the year, as it anticipates flat budgets for space programs at NASA and the Pentagon in the coming decade.

"We looked at the budget forecasts and new program starts looking at three to five years in the future and realized we need to be appropriately sized," said Charles Manor, a Lockheed spokesman. "We need to get a bit smaller" he said, because the company expects few new programs starting with the Defense Department and NASA.

"It is a very unfortunate step, but it is necessary," he said. "It is clear that DOD's space modernization effort has reached its apex. Things will be relatively flat for the foreseeable future."

Manor said the Bethesda-based company would offer a voluntary buyout plan this month to its space systems employees. The cuts will include technical, managerial and administrative positions at facilities in Denver and Sunnyvale, Calif. The reductions represent about 4.5 percent of Lockheed's roughly 140,000-person workforce.

"NASA and DOD's budgets for space are not going to grow by leaps and bounds," said Marco A. Caceres, a senior analyst and director of space studies at the Teal Group, a Fairfax industry consultant. "There's a dose of reality that's going to set in because of the economic situation."

The job cuts announced Monday come as Lockheed is also downsizing its operation in Louisiana where it makes rocket fuel tanks for the space shuttle. The shuttle is scheduled to make its last flight in 2010. Lockheed has had other job reductions in Owego, N.Y., where it makes the new presidential helicopters. A multibillion-dollar contract on the helicopters was recently canceled.

Source : Washington Post
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Samsung files notice of 550 job cuts

Samsung Austin Semiconductor plans to cut 550 jobs from its Northeast Austin manufacturing operations starting on or about Oct. 18, according to a notice submitted by the company to the Texas Workforce Commission Tuesday.

The company did not immediately provide a list of job categories affected.

Samsung has said that many of the job cuts would affect equipment operators at Fab 1, which will be shut down on or about Oct. 18. But spokesman Bill Cryer acknowledged that other job classifications, including engineers and technicians also will be affected.

Samsung informed workers of the impending shutdown of Fab 1 last Friday. The company expects to spend $500 million renovating and re-equipping the older chip factory to become a part of the newer Fab 2, which is inext door to Fab 1.

Fab 1 began producing chips in 1997. Fab 2, which is much larger and far more automated, started production in 2007.

Fab 2 makes flash memory chips used in smart phones, portable media players and other consumer devices.

When the renovation is complete, Samsung said it expects to hire 150 to 200 workers next year to work in the expanded Fab 2.

Source : Statesman
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Fury as Lloyds closes Cheltenham & Gloucester branches and cuts 1,660 jobs

• All 164 branches of the 160-year-old building society to close
• Cuts come on day taxpayer's stake increases to more than 45%

Lloyd Banking Group provoked a furious reaction from unions and MPs tonight over its plans to shut all 164 Cheltenham & Gloucester branches and cut a further 1,660 jobs.

The decision, which came on the day the taxpayer's stake in the bailed out bank rose temporarily to 45.74%, takes the total job cull at the UK's largest high street bank to more than 4,000 since it was created in January by Lloyds TSB's rescue of HBOS. Further job cuts, as many as 25,000, are expected from the combined 140,000 workforce during the three-year integration.

The entire C&G network is to close by November after more than 150 years and more than 15 years after the Gloucester-based building society was taken over by Lloyds TSB.

The sudden move prompted speculation that Lloyds was trying to head off a move by the EU, which the bank had already warned could demand drastic sell-offs of parts of its operations to counter concerns about anti-competitiveness.

The Unite union attacked the decision as "nothing short of disgraceful". Its general secretary, Derek Simpson, warned that closing the C&G network would "rip the heart out of hundreds of local communities up and down the country". Unite also said today 500 staff at RBS have been told that they are at risk of redundancy as part of an existing job cut programme.

John McFall, chairman of the Treasury select committee, told MPs Lloyds had betrayed "the dignity of the workforce". He urged Treasury secretary Kitty Ussher to "join me in writing to Cheltenham & Gloucester to ensure that people are treated properly when it comes to being unemployed".

McFall was particularly furious the job cuts had been leaked, leaving the bank scrambling this morning to inform staff of the plan drawn up by Helen Weir, who is responsible for retail banking.

About 1,000 employees will lose their jobs as a result of the C&G closures, while the bank is cutting 265 positions across its personal loans division, which will lead to job losses in Chester and Cardiff, with other jobs also going across its retail, personal finance and mortgage sales operations.

Intelligent Finance, a brand launched to much fanfare by HBOS at the height of the dotcom boom, is to be closed to new mortgage business.

Lloyds said compulsory redundancies would be "a last resort". Weir said: "We will work through these changes carefully and sensitively and continue to consult closely with our unions throughout."

She stressed C&G would continue to be used as a mortgage brand through brokers, alongside Birmingham Midshires, Halifax and Scottish Widows. For the first time, Bank of Scotland will start to sell its own-brand mortgages in its branches, rather than those of the Halifax, the country's biggest mortgage lender.

The enlarged bank is operating a multi-brand strategy, although it is dropping the Clerical Medical name, which was part of HBOS. This is unlike the Spanish bank Santander, which recently announced plans to unite Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley under its red flame logo.

The taxpayer stake in Lloyds yesterday rose to more 45% after the Treasury pumped in a further £1.7bn to enable the bank to exchange preference shares for ordinary shares, although the stake will slide back to 43% once the "rump" shares from the placing are sold. In the process some £2.3bn was repaid to the taxpayer.

Simpsonsaid: "UK taxpayers have not poured billions of pounds into this organisation just to see it sack thousands of hard-working people. This is truly a dark day for the financial services sector in this country."

Alex Potter, banking analyst at City broker Collins Stewart, said the closures could be a "sop" to the regulators, even though Gordon Brown allowed UK competition rules to be broken when HBOS was rescued.

The EU has yet to pronounce on the deal. "There are still antitrust concerns about the Lloyds-HBOS merger at commission level," Potter told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.



Source : Guardian
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

UK aerospace 'facing 10,000 job cuts'

The UK aerospace sector is set to cut 10% of jobs, about 10,000 posts, in the next year, an industry body has said.

The Society of British Aerospace Companies said falling passenger levels were hitting aircraft orders as well as spending on research and development.

Demand for military planes was up by about 3% on the same time a year ago, it said, but this was partly thanks to orders placed several years ago.

The sector is worth about £20bn a year and employs about 100,000 people.

But the society's general director, Ian Godden, told the BBC this headcount was likely to be reduced by 10% in 2009.

There are fewer orders for planes and so fewer people are required to make them," said the society's chief executive, Ian Godden.

The report was released on the day that BAA - which operate seven UK airports -reported passenger numbers had fallen by 7.3% in May from a year ago after the recession hit North Atlantic traffic and airlines cut capacity at Stansted.

Unclear future

The Society of British Aerospace Companies said that sales volumes had been flat in 2008, but there had been a slight rise in turnover.

Falls were experienced in employment, orders and R&D spending, but exports, productivity and skills levels rose, it said.

"The civil sector appears to be hit harder than the defence sector but the export market and order backlogs offer some cause for optimism," Mr Godden said.

"There has been a slowdown in the sector but compared to the rest of the economy, aerospace has held up well thus far.

"Our industry is in for a difficult period in the immediate future but the degree of that difficulty is yet to become clear."

Large employers in the sector include Airbus, BAE and Rolls-Royce.

Mr Godden told the BBC that Rolls-Royce was an "exceptional case" because it not only made aircraft engines, but also carried out repairs on its engines and so was relatively well-protected during tougher times.

Source : BBC
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

British Airways looks to 2,000 job cuts to stay airborne

BRITISH Airways boss Willie Walsh has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies among the airline's 40,000 staff after setting a three-week deadline for an agreement on pay cuts and job reductions.

BA is offering voluntary redundancy to its 14,000-strong cabin crew in an effort to cut 2000 jobs.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Kuala Lumpur, the BA chief executive said he had set a June 30 target for reaching an agreement on pay deals because the industry was in a "fight for survival". Talks with the various unions will begin today.

Asked if BA was considering compulsory redundancies, Mr Walsh said: "I would not rule that out. We will take whatever steps are necessary to see the business through this crisis. We are working together and, I would say, generally constructively so far. But we have significant challenges that must be addressed."

Mr Walsh was confident there would be a good response to the voluntary redundancy program. "We know there is huge pent-up demand among the cabin crew group," he said.

But negotiations with cabin crew have been fraught in recent years.

A dispute with flight attendants cost the airline £80 million two years ago when they called off a threatened strike at the last minute. BA was able to run a full service but was left with multimillion-pound losses and empty terminals at Heathrow Airport after passengers avoided the airline or sought compensation for their bookings.

Mr Walsh denied that BA passengers faced a summer of strike action that could further damage a business that lost £401 million ($A816 million) last year and would disrupt the holiday plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers.

Asked if holidaymakers faced strike-led disruption, Mr Walsh said: "I don't see it. We have got very intelligent people working for us at BA. They can see what is happening in the industry. Everyone in the business can see that this is not a temporary blip and it's a massive challenge facing all airlines."

Mr Walsh said the airline would struggle to survive if it did not tackle costs, as the industry gathered in Malaysia to debate how to reduce a forecast combined loss of £5.7 billion ($A11.6 billion) this year.

IATA economist Brian Pearce warned this week that airlines could shed 100,000 jobs this year.

"I have talked about this industry being in a fight for survival and BA, as part of the industry, is in a fight for survival," Mr Walsh said.

Trade unions have called for short-term pay changes but are so far baulking at permanent alterations to their contracts.

Mr Walsh was adamant airlines faced a long downturn and any economic recovery would not be fast or strong enough to save them.

Source : TheAge
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

General Motors to slash 10,000 salaried jobs

General Motors Corp, staying afloat with $13.4 billion in federal rescue loans, announced early today that it is cutting its worldwide salaried workforce by 10,000, or 14%, this year and temporarily reducing the pay for a majority of its U.S. white-collar workforce.

"These difficult actions are necessitated by a severe drop in vehicle sales worldwide and by the need to restructure GM for long term viability," the company said in a statement.
GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, who was meeting with congressional leaders in Washington about global warming legislation, said the announcement is “indicative of the kind of things we need to do to get this viability plan in shape and respond to these tough market conditions.”

The Detroit automaker is racing to put together a long-term viability plan to present to the government Feb. 17. It has said it needs to cut its U.S. salaried and hourly workforce by as much as 31,500 people through 2012.

“The announcement this week begins implementation of this aspect of the plan,” the company said.

In the U.S., GM's salaried workforce of 29,500 will be cut by about 3,400, or 12%, by May 1.

In a statement, GM said the job cuts “will be made using GM separation programs and policies which provide for severance payments, benefit contributions and outplacement assistance.”

The company also said executive employees in the United States will have their base pay cut by 10% and "many other" salaried employees will see reductions ranging from 3% to 7%. The U.S. pay reductions will also go into effect May 1 and will be in effect through the end of the year.

One 20-year GM employee said he heard the news on the radio this morning but had the day off, so he hadn’t had time to talk to coworkers yet. Anxiety, he said, was already running high before the announcement.

“Frankly, I am still trying to take it all in,” said the employee, who did not want to be identified.

“Everybody is worried and they are concerned,” he said. “It’s really been a situation where you don’t know what’s going to happen. And you are kind of waiting for whatever the next shoe is to drop.”

The employee, who works at the GM Technical Center in Warren, said his wife works for an automotive parts supplier and her job is also at risk.

“When you look at the economy in general, you know its not just General Motors,” he said. “If it was just General Motors, you could look someplace else for a job.”

Dustin Suppes, 29, of Novi, said, "I had heard rumblings and I figured it would be sooner rather than later because the viability plan is due the 17th and we're getting pretty close to that."

A white-collar worker at Delphi Corp., which is GM’s largest supplier and has been struggling to emerge from bankruptcy, said today’s news out of GM only further sank the mood at Delphi. He did not want to be identified for fears of repercussions in the current environment.

“Are people on suicide watch? No,” he said. “But they are trying to survive. The news is coming out faster and faster, so people are more apprehensive every day and every week.”

Workers there are also concerned, he said, that Delphi will implement pay cuts similar to the ones GM announced.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Delphi, Visteon and others follow suit,” he said.

The job cuts announced at GM follow a slew of job cuts announced at major employers nationwide over the past few months. About 600,000 jobs were lost in January, bringing U.S. unemployment to 7.6%. The number of unemployed Americans now stands at 11.6 million.

GM salaried retiree Gerald Patrick, 69, of Shelby Township said he thinks the news about the additional GM job cuts comes at a terrible time.

“For every good-paying automotive job that's lost, I think you have six to 10 other people affected,” he said. “It's a big snowball, and it just keeps gathering people and jobs and getting bigger and bigger. … It’s getting bigger and getting faster.”

Patrick said somebody needs to step in to stop the job losses from getting any worse.

“We need to do what we can to protect these jobs,” he said. “Something has got to be done.”

Source : Freep
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

RBS planning up to 2,300 job cuts

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has said it will cut up to 2,300 jobs as it restructures the business.

The jobs will be lost from its back office operations across the UK.

RBS said it hoped to keep compulsory redundancies "to a minimum", and said that there would be no cuts among its customer facing staff.

The bank needed a government bail-out last year. In exchange for £20bn of public funds, the government now has a stake of almost 70% in the lender.

The cuts represent about 2% of RBS's UK workforce of 106,000 employees.

RBS UK chief executive Alan Dickinson said he recognised "that any news of this nature is unwelcome at any time".

"It is essential, however, that we consistently review our business to ensure that we are able to operate as efficiently as possible, especially in the current economic circumstances," he added.

RBS shares closed down 4%.

Bonus row

RBS announced 3,000 job cuts in October, and recently said that it expected to make an annual loss of between £7bn and £8bn for 2008.

It is also set to write down the value of assets, largely related to its takeover of ABN Amro in 2007, by up to £20bn.

Former RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin told MPs on Tuesday that he "could not be more sorry" for what had happened to the bank.

Speaking before the Treasury Committee, he added that the bonus culture across the whole banking sector needed to be reviewed.

Sir Fred and RBS's former chairman Sir Tom McKillop both resigned from the bank in October of last year.

Sir Tom admitted to MPs that his bank's much-criticised purchase of Dutch rival ABN Amro had been a "big mistake".

Chancellor Alistair Darling has also entered the recent row over banking bonuses, saying on Sunday that RBS should not reward its staff with excessive bonuses.

"I have spoken to the chief executive of RBS, and made it quite clear - and he agrees - that no-one associated with these huge losses should be allowed to walk away with large cash bonuses," said Mr Darling.

Source : BBC
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

UBS posts record Swiss loss, cuts 2,000 jobs

Swiss bank UBS on Tuesday posted an annual loss of 17 billion dollars (13 billion euros) in 2008, the largest in Swiss corporate history, and announced 2,000 new job cuts.

Full year loss in 2008 reached 19.697 billion Swiss francs, including 8.1 billion francs worth of losses incurred during the last three months of the year, UBS said in a statement.

Switzerland's biggest bank, which is one of the worst-hit globally by the United States subprime home-loan crisis and the ensuing market fallout, said more jobs would go this year at its investment bank unit, which was responsible for most of the damage.

Despite the figures, the bank said that it would still pay employees bonuses totalling 2.15 billion francs.

Just under half of the sum are bonuses that the company is obliged to pay contractually, while the remaining 1.161 billion francs make up variable bonuses determined by management.

The group's board said it would forego bonuses for 2008.

Chief executive Marcel Rohner reiterated a projection made earlier that UBS would be profitable in 2009 after posting its second consecutive full-year loss.

He said the bank has had "an encouraging start" this year, with positive inflows of assets at its wealth management and asset management units.

"We have had positive net new money in January and an encouraging start into the year. That also refers to trading in (our) investment bank," chief executive officer Marcel Rohner told journalists during a conference call.

The news gave a temporary bounce to the stock, which gained sharply in opening trade before falling back.

At 0812 GMT, it was trading 6.74 percent higher at 13.77 francs, outperforming the overall Swiss Market Index which was up 0.53 percent. By 0837 GMT, however, the stock was up 1.6 percent to 13.11 francs, while the SMI was trading flat.

Stemming a haemorrhage of assets has been a key concern at the bank, after clients withdrew a net 83.6 billion francs worth of assets in the third quarter and 85.8 billion worth in the last three months of the year.

"Overall net new money outflows were particularly heavy in October, but slowed down progressively in November and December," said the bank.

However, the bank warned that it remained "cautious" and that it would continue to cut costs and risks.

It announced another 2,000 job cuts in its investment banking unit on Tuesday, bringing the total job losses since October 2007 to 11,000.

"Financial market conditions remain fragile as company and household cash flows continue to deteriorate. On the other hand, governments are taking very substantial measures to ease fiscal and monetary conditions," the bank noted.

"Our near-term outlook remains cautious, and UBS will continue its programme to strengthen its financial position through reductions in risk positions, risk weighted assets, total assets and operating costs," it added.

An icon of Swiss banking, UBS has experienced two very turbulent years, with billions in asset writedowns and losses that forced it to take on an emergency state aid package worth almost 60 billion dollars late last year.

Source : AFP
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

GM Slashes 10,000 Jobs and Executive Pay; Wal-Mart Cuts 800 Jobs

A government grant of $9.4 billion hasn't helped General Motors, one of the nation's Big Three automakers, retain its workforce.

GM today announced it will cut 10,000 jobs in May and continue global layoffs through the year. Mid-level salaries will be decreased 3 to 7 percent and executives will take 10 percent pay cuts. With a severe drop in car sales and the need for restructuring, GM joins a list of companies letting go of employees to keep their businesses afloat.

GM has received $9.4 billion in federal assistance and expects to get $4 billion more this month. In the past few months, GM has been under scrutiny after appealing for and receiving a $13.4 billion bailout. The company, along with Ford, was forced to sell its jet fleet as CEO Rick Wagoner arrived in Washington in November on a private plane while pleading for taxpayer money. All three automaker CEOs flew in corporate jets to Capitol Hill.

Despite the claims of scaling back, the company also recently showed up at the Super Bowl as a corporate NFL sponsor, continuing to offer the newest Cadillac to the MVP and providing courtesy vehicles for VIPs.

GM has already cut back on benefits and payroll of salaried workers since November. The company is still in talks with the United Auto Workers union about worker buyouts in an attempt to decrease outstanding debt. The news of job cuts comes the day after GM vice chairman Robert Lutz announced his retirement. Lutz will be replaced by Thomas Stephens, GM's executive vice president of global powertrain and quality division, at the end of the year.

With more than 30 years of experience, Lutz claims that GM will pull through the recession under the automaker's viability plan to be submitted to Congress Feb. 17. The proposal will undoubtedly downsize the automaker, despite the federal financial assistance.

While he was not present at the congressional bailout hearings, Lutz's uncanny response to the increasing criticism of GM CEO Rick Wagoner was clear in a New York Times interview: "This is the equivalent of the Incan or Mayan days when everybody would go to the top of the volcano and throw a virgin in."

Lutz is well-known in the media for his outspoken remarks and in the industry as a larger-than-life revolutionary executive. He has worked for all three of the nation's major automakers, starting at GM in 1963 and returning in 2001 under the hire of Wagoner.

Source : ABC
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Nissan to cut 20,000 jobs amid stormy forecasts

Nissan Motor on Monday joined its Japanese carmaking rivals in forecasting a big loss for the current financial year, and said it would eliminate 20,000 jobs, in one of the most aggressive cuts announced by any Japanese company since the start of the global downturn.

The development reflects the growing urgency felt by Japanese manufacturers across the board as it becomes clear that the slowdown, combined with the persistent strength of the yen, is hitting more severely than thought.

"In every planning scenario we built, our worst assumptions on the state of the global economy have been met or exceeded, with the continuing grip on credit and declining consumer confidence being the most damaging factors," the Nissan chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, said in a statement accompanying Nissan's earnings release for the three months ended Dec. 31.

This will be the first annual net loss since Ghosn took the helm at Nissan a decade ago.

The entire industry is in turmoil. Toyota Motor, Mazda Motor and Mitsubishi Motors all recently announced they would post losses.

In the United States, the government is bailing out two of the country's largest automakers, General Motors and Chrysler. France on Monday announced a €6 billion, or $7.8 billion, loan plan to support its car industry.

"In 1999, we were alone. In 2009, everybody is suffering," Ghosn said Monday, according to The Associated Press.

Nissan said it now expected a net loss of ¥265 billion, or $2.9 billion, for the business year ending March 31. It had previously projected a ¥160 billion profit for the year.

The profit warning coincided with data released Monday showing that corporate bankruptcies in Japan rose 16 percent in January to the highest level in six years. Also, Japanese machinery orders declined for a third consecutive month in December.

"There has been a phenomenal decline in output in Japan, and it looks like the first quarter of this year will be even worse than the last quarter of 2008," said Hiroshi Shiraishi, an economist in Tokyo for BNP Paribas.

"Demand for capital goods remains in free fall."

Company financial releases over the past two weeks have shown that the drop-off in demand was much worse than feared, leading nearly all of the best-known Japanese companies - Toyota, Sony, NEC, Hitachi and Panasonic among them - to warn of major losses for the business year ending March 31 and begin a wave of layoffs in an attempt to preserve cash.

Honda Motor and Nintendo, the maker of the popular Wii game console, are among the few major companies to still expect a full-year profit, but they, too, have had to severely scale back their earnings expectations.

Nissan revised its forecast after a grim set of earnings for the last three months of 2008, as the economic slowdown and credit crunch caused its global car sales to slump 18.6 percent, to 731,000 units.

Nissan lost ¥83.2 billion from October through December - a major reversal from the net profit of ¥132.3 billion a year earlier.

With cars piling up unsold around the world, manufacturers have rushed to cut production and costs. Nissan on Monday announced that it would reduce output to 787,000 units by March 31 - down 20 percent from its original production plan. It is also reducing capital spending, scrapping bonuses for directors and eliminating 20,000 jobs in its 235,000-person work force; 12,000 of the job cuts will be in Japan.

Nissan's layoffs are the third major job-cut announcement in Japan since Jan. 30. In that period the electronics makers NEC and Panasonic announced layoffs totaling 35,000.

The downturn in demand for discretionary goods like cars has hurt manufacturers around the world.

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Source : IHT
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Sega Loses Big, Company Now Facing Significant Layoffs

More bad news in the form of financial results has surfaced today, this time from Sega and its results for the first three quarters of its 2009 fiscal year. This period, which ran through December 31, 2008, saw a total loss of 10.8 billion yen or $119 million USD, reports GamesIndustry.biz. It may not be as significant of a loss as the previous year's staggering $173 million loss during the same period, but needless to say, this isn't good news.

Following up on the news is word from Kotaku that Sega is poised to either close or sell 100 arcade centers in Japan, reduce research and development by 20%, and layoff 560 of the company's 3,100 employees. Layoffs are apparently in a voluntary phase currently, with those who surrender their jobs willingly to be let go next month. Things aren't looking up in the fourth quarter, either, as Sega is expecting the full fiscal year's losses to exceed $235 million.

The layoffs will hopefully be sufficient in getting Sega back on track of profitability. One thing for sure to come out of this is that, as sweet as they are, you can kiss those dreams of a Dreamcast 2 goodbye.

Source : 1Up
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]