THE Let the worldwide layoffs begin Thread pt 2 (merged)

[Ferretlover]

... sigh ... I know that some people don't think so, but the US IS part of the world; and, it is not that it is out of the norm, the point is the well-known companies that are shutting down.
That, is spite of the cheery employment numbers that came out today (HLN), there are not only a lot of people out-of-work, now there will be thousands more.
Since I haven't seen the numbers yet, I won't go into explaining the reduction numbers of military personnel that was mentioned today in the "reducing the US military" stories.
Can I explain anything else for you?

[KingM]

Can I explain anything else for you?

Yes, please. How is this different from the mass layoffs that occur every year? Companies--even huge ones--come and go. K-Mart dying is a function of Wal-mart's cancerous growth, not an indication of the weakness of the retail sector.

As for worldwide, the US is picking up, China is slowing down, Europe is in trouble, India seems to be doing well, and most of the middle income countries like Turkey, Brazil, Peru, and Morocco, are booming. I don't see a pattern, except that developing countries have had a very good decade and wealthy countries have not.

[Timo]

Macy's and Bloomingdales are closing a bunch of stores, too.

Looking at this from the non-doomer POV, one could simply conclude that the old adage that the bigger they grow, the harder they collapse. All major empires and civilizations collapsed, theoretically - at least, because they grew too big to be able to adequately defend themselves. Apply the same logic to capitalism. Capitalism requires competition, and a great number of businesses now have grown too big to sustain their operations in light of equally strong competition. They're scaling back their operations in order to avoid a complete collapse. Maybe the Roman Empire would have hung on if they'd've employed this philosophy. Maybe not. I wasn't there and don't know exactly what was going on at the time. But, we can easily see that Boeing grew (perhaps) too dependent on government contracts, and every single Tea Partier and almost every Republican (and even some Democrats) recognizes that the Government is too big. Hence, the big, mighty giant of government is starting to contract, and that contraction takes with it a whole lot of jobs that went along with it. Extrapolate the spin-off effects of this contraction, and there is a lot less money in the economy for people to spend, which affects the retail giants, all of whom have developed their own planetary gravitation pull for consumer dollars. Hence, they contract, too, in order to prevent collapsing completely. Now, the non-doomer would look at all of this going on and come to the conclusion that the goods and services provided by those mega-giants won't disappear, and whereas those giants killed off countless mom-n-pop local businesses, the die-off of the giants leaves an opening for local economies to re-emerge, thus reducing the total number of unemployed. Now, i'm not saying these layoffs are at good thing, at least not initially, but hese layoffs might be the beginning of an actual, sustainable economic balance. Things got too big to sustain, and the contractions might just be a good thing in the long term, meaning that the resulting level of economic activity might be more sustainable for everyone. Only time will tell.

[Duende]

Timo wrote:

Now, i'm not saying these layoffs are at good thing, at least not initially, but these layoffs might be the beginning of an actual, sustainable economic balance. Things got too big to sustain, and the contractions might just be a good thing in the long term, meaning that the resulting level of economic activity might be more sustainable for everyone. Only time will tell.

You have aptly expressed the progression described by John Michael Greer in "The Long Descent". The concept is that rising economic activity leads to spikes in energy use beyond a sustainable level. Then, economic activity drops down a step and muddles along sideways for awhile until energy inputs decline along with it. This in turn causes another step collapse in economic activity. Rinse and repeat. This downward step progression continues until energy inputs can sustainably support a given level of economic activity. No one knows exactly where that steady state level is at, but I suspect this process has a ways to go. There's plenty of downward action left ahead of us.

[Shaved Monkey]

Looks like there are a few temporary jobs in Australia if you have skills and dont mind an isolated, stinking hot or humid environment.

United States construction workers will be encouraged to work in Australia in a bid to address Australian skill shortages and US unemployment levels.
Senator Evans said that the need for extra construction workers in civil and heavy engineering trades was temporary - with demand likely to peak over the next three to five years - for mining and infrastructure projects. He said the government was wary of training up large numbers of Australians who would then be left unemployed when the peak subsided.
US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich said that unemployment in the US was currently at about 8.3 per cent.
"This is a real win-win for both of our nations," he said. "No job will be taken away from Australians."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politi ... z1qrIDLvMd

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

Swiss bank UBS AG is expected to cut up to 10,000 jobs, or 16 percent of its workforce, as it contends with shrinking revenue and rising capital requirements, a source familiar with the matter said, in what would be one of the largest layoffs by a bank since the financial crisis. Switzerland's biggest bank is expected to make the cuts across the firm globally, but the bulk of the losses are likely to occur in its hard-hit trading and investment banking areas.

One might have thought the banks should have recovered somewhat since 2008/2009.
Been hearing about banks freezing hiring as well here. Another "here we go again" ... ?

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

Sony Corp said it will cut staff in its headquarters by a fifth and shutter a factory making camera lenses and mobile phones in Japan, providing new details of a previously announced plan to trim its global headcount by 10,000 by end-March. In addition to 1,800 at a chemical business it sold to a state-run bank in Japan, Sony will let go roughly another 2,000 people from its head office and plant in Gifu, central Japan ...

Kinda sad to see Sony continue to freefall. They haven't had much hits since the Trinitron TV era, and smartphones / mobile devices are eating into the market share of dedicated gaming consoles like the PS3.

[SeaGypsy]

Looks like there are a few temporary jobs in Australia if you have skills and dont mind an isolated, stinking hot or humid environment.

United States construction workers will be encouraged to work in Australia in a bid to address Australian skill shortages and US unemployment levels.
Senator Evans said that the need for extra construction workers in civil and heavy engineering trades was temporary - with demand likely to peak over the next three to five years - for mining and infrastructure projects. He said the government was wary of training up large numbers of Australians who would then be left unemployed when the peak subsided.
US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich said that unemployment in the US was currently at about 8.3 per cent.
"This is a real win-win for both of our nations," he said. "No job will be taken away from Australians."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politi ... z1qrIDLvMd

How things change in a few months; now layoffs galore in building here.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

The Dow Chemical Co. will eliminate about 2,400 jobs and close roughly 20 manufacturing facilities as part of a restructuring plan aimed at coping with slowing economic growth in Europe and elsewhere. The manufacturing giant said Tuesday that the job cuts amount to 5 percent of the company's workforce worldwide. Dow expects the strategy will result in roughly $500 million in annual cost savings by the end of 2014.

Looks like part of a generalized downturn. This is one of those companies that you'd probably expect to have a broad-based presence across the economy.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

DuPont slashed its earnings forecast, reported a lower-than-expected quarterly profit and announced 1,500 job cuts on Tuesday, signs that demand for the chemical company's lucrative paint and solar products is slipping around the world. The job cuts by the company, which also makes Kevlar bulletproof fiber and Corian countertops, marks one of the more extreme reactions to slipping demand and global economic uncertainty so far in this earnings season. Demand fell around the world, most sharply in Asia and Europe, hurt by higher prices for titanium dioxide, a key pigment used to make paint and a market DuPont dominates, and pastes used to make solar panels.

Yet another example of an industrial company doing yet another mass layoff. Of course there are those who say that this is a lagging indicator. I'd say it's somewhat coincident to lagging, but definitely not a leading one. The other leading indicator to watch is the stock market, obviously, and so far that hasn't crashed (yet?)

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. says it will cut nearly 1,800 jobs, about 15 percent of its workforce, by the end of the year in order to reduce spending in the face of dwindling sales. AMD is the world's second-biggest maker of microprocessors for personal computers and PC sales are falling. That's partly due to more consumers shifting away from PCs and doing their computing on tablets and smartphones.

It's partly due to Apple (for launching the whole mobile computing paradigm), partly due to Intel (for being able to stay nearly 2 entire process generations ahead of the competition), but in the end it's wholly AMD's fault for not having seen this and reacted earlier. Now they cannot compete on technology, features, or volumes, and all they can do is to cut pricing, which cannot be sustained for very long.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

Swiss banking giant UBS AG announced massive layoffs Tuesday along with huge losses in its third-quarter results, saying it aims to trim as many as 10,000 employees, or some 15 percent of its staff, to drastically shrink its ailing investment bank. The bank posted a net profit loss of 2.17 billion Swiss francs ($2.31 billion), compared with a profit of 1.02 billion Swiss francs ($1.13 billion) during the same three-month period through September 2011.

So the official announcement is out, verifying the talk going around days before that. One wonders if there will be any more such large-scale announcements in the coming weeks till end of the year.

The other big one earlier this year was the Bank of America cut of 16,000 jobs, and 30,000 by the end of 2013.

[lowem]

businessweek.com :

Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALU) Chief Executive Officer Ben Verwaayen will need to eliminate an additional 10,000 positions to catch up with more efficient rivals as the unprofitable phone-equipment maker’s cash pile dwindles. Even taking into account the 5,500 job cuts announced in October, Alcatel-Lucent’s revenue per employee was 49,700 euros ($63,600) last quarter, at least 14 percent less than those of Nokia Siemens Networks and Ericsson AB, data compiled by Bloomberg showed...

And check out Alcatel-Lucent's share price.
It's sitting at exactly $1.00 at the moment.
That's not exactly a very inspiring sight.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

ING Groep NV, the Dutch bank and insurance company, has revealed plans to cut 2,350 jobs alongside a sharp drop in third-quarter profits. It says Wednesday that its net profit fell to €609 million ($783 million) from €1.69 billion a year ago. It says the decline was due to it selling assets at a loss to eliminate the potential for bigger losses later. The job cuts represent 2.5 percent of ING's workforce.

Not too familiar with ING but might have seen their presence around in the city area somewhere here.
Well, anything over 1,000 jobs lost probably counts as a mass layoff.

Grapevine around is that to avoid triggering such news and the resultant publicity, certain companies are doing it in smaller batches at a time ... yep, stealth layoffs.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson says it is slashing 1,550 jobs in Sweden in a bid to lower its costs, with the bulk of the reductions being made within the company's key networks unit. Last month, Ericsson reported a 43 percent drop in third-quarter net profits as the global financial slowdown caused operators to become more cautious about investing in its network infrastructure business.

3G base stations, anyone? 4G? LTE? Nope?
Ah well.

[lowem]

channelnewsasia.com :

Commerzbank, Germany's second-biggest bank, is preparing to axe up to 10 percent of its workforce in the coming years, or 5,000-6,000 jobs, the weekly Die Zeit reported on Wednesday. Die Zeit, in a pre-release of an article to appear on Thursday, said Commerzbank is planning billions of euros in cost-cutting across all divisions between now and 2016.

The body count is piling up in the financial sector. Hitting Europe particularly hard this round, with all the European names coming up, UBS, ING, and now Commerzbank. So apparently Germany isn't immune as well despite popular belief.

[lowem]

channelnewsasia.com :

German engineering giant Siemens launched on Thursday a massive strategic effort to slash costs by 6.0 billion euros ($7.6 billion) over the next two years after losing ground to competitors. Siemens's net profit tumbled 27 percent in the 12 months to September "as we didn't fully succeed in significantly boosting our performance vis-a-vis competitors," chief executive Peter Loescher said.

The detailed count hasn't been released yet but it's going to be high, likely well into the 5-digit range.
Their energy business has cost them quite a bit of momentum, particularly in solar which they are now pulling out of.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

Energizer Holdings Inc said on Thursday that it would cut more than 10 percent of its workforce, or about 1,500 people, as it tries to rev up results in its battery business. Energizer has been reviewing everything from procurement to manufacturing and selling, general and administrative costs. The company said it wants to streamline its lineup of household products to allow it to focus on the core battery business.

Energizer? Never heard any sort of mass layoff news from the likes of them before. It's spreading from financials and now all the way on to consumer staples even. What was that new job creation number again? 171,000 in October? We'd also need a job destruction number at this rate.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com :

International Airlines Group warned on Friday that its Spanish carrier Iberia was "in a fight for survival" and unveiled a restructuring plan to cut 4,500 jobs as it reported a drop in third-quarter profit. Iberia CEO Rafael Sanchez-Lozano said the carrier is losing money in all its markets and was "burning €1.7 million ($2.17 million) every day." IAG, which was formed in early 2011 by the merger of British Airways and Iberia, has given the Spanish unions a Jan. 31 deadline to reach agreement on the job cuts. The proposed job cuts would shrink Iberia's payroll from 20,000 to 15,500 and its capacity by 15 percent. The company will suspend non-profitable routes, shed 25 aircraft and adjust salaries.

Okay, we've heard from financials, industrials and tech, and now it's on to airlines. Mass layoffs are not quite at 2008 levels so far but it's been building up. We'll see if the situation improves next year or if our American friends' upcoming fiscal cliff + the ongoing Europe situation will bring about yet another big financial crisis once again.

[lowem]

news.yahoo.com

About a fifth of Panasonic Corp's 88 business units are losing money and only half so far meet a target for at least 5 percent operating margin, the Japanese electronics group's finance chief said in an interview on Wednesday. Hideaki Kawai said the country's biggest commercial employer will axe another 10,000 jobs by end-March as it pares its costs and looks to return to profit. Panasonic shed 36,000 jobs last business year, some through the sale of businesses.

The current wave of mass layoffs is now circling back to tech and it is starting to look really dismal. Sony 10,000 and now Panasonic 10,000. It doesn't look confined to Japan only as we have recently heard from Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent as well as Energizer.