By Calvin Palmer
Today, corporate America and companies in Europe, faced by falling profits, reduced demand and a gloomy forecast of lowered global growth from the International Monetary Fund, announced job losses totaling more than 70,000 in an attempt to reduce costs and keep their business afloat.
Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of heavy equipment, said it would eliminate nearly 20,000 jobs, reported a 32 percent drop in profit and forecast the weakest year for business since the end of World War Two.
Sprint Nextel Corp the third largest U.S. mobile service provider, said it will cut up to 8,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce.
Retailer Home Depot Inc said it will cut 7,000 jobs, or about 2 percent of its workforce. And General Motors Corp said it would lay off 2,000 more workers at two assembly plants.
The world’s leading drug company Pfizer Inc said it would buy rival Wyeth for $68 billion and in the process shed 19,500 jobs, 15 percent of the 130,000 workforce of the combined companies.
Dallas-based Texas Instruments, which makes chips for cellphones and other gadgets, said it will cut 3,400 jobs because demand has slackened amid a slowing economy.
Earlier in the day, Europe’s electronics giant Philips reported 6,000 layoffs as it posted a larger-than-expected loss of 1.5 billion euros ($1.9 billion), its first quarterly loss since 2003.
Dutch financial services group ING cut 7,000 of its 130,000 jobs, replaced its CEO and got guarantees from the Dutch government.
Europe’s second-largest steelmaker, said 3,500 jobs would go worldwide, including 2,500 in Britain, as the company, owned by India’s Tata Steel, sought to boost operating profit.
This bad news for workers came on the day when it was revealed that Richard Fuld, the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. chairman who led the firm into bankruptcy, transferred his $13.3 million home, at Jupiter Beach, Florida, to his wife last year for the sum of $100.
Shouldn’t Lehman and his wife both be behind bars, and stripped of all their assets, instead of laughing all the way to their offshore funds?
[Based on reports by Reuters and Bloomberg.]
