WASHINGTON - A new round of over 15,000 job cuts and more pain in the unemployed ranks stoked anxiety as the world faces the tightening grip of recession.
Some snapshots of job cuts announced on Thursday:
AT&T TO CUT 12,000 JOBS
AT&T announced on Thursday that it planned to lay off 12,000 people and curb spending on new equipment - a sign that the telecommunications industry is beginning to feel the pain of the economic downturn.
AT&T had already been struggling with a decline in revenue from its traditional wire-line phone service as customers continued to drop land lines. Rapid growth in wireless, television and high-speed
Internet services more than offset that drop.
NBC NEWS ANNOUNCES LAYOFFS
Several correspondents and other staff were laid off at NBC News this week as part of $500 million in planned cuts at General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The moves at NBC News brought the division into line with the corporate goal of a 3 per cent budget cut, said the person, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
The news division has about 1,200 employees.
AVIS CUTS 2,200 jobs
Car rental company Avis Budget Group Inc said it eliminated more than 2,200 positions across all areas of its business, as part of its plan to lower costs.
The company, which plans to close its claims processing facility in Orlando, said it would also freeze management salaries and increase its retail car rental rates from Dec 1.
HMH CUTS JOBS
In more bad news from the US book industry, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it is 'streamlining' its educational business, and eliminating jobs in both its education and general divisions. HarperCollins and Pearson, parent company of Penguin Group (USA), are freezing wages and considering layoffs.
'This is the most challenging economic environment that any of us has ever experienced,' Penguin Group chairman John Makinson wrote in a company memo that circulated Thursday, in which he announced that raises worldwide would be held off for Pearson employees making $50,000 or more and said he could not promise there would be no job losses in 2009.
This week alone, Random House Inc. announced a massive consolidation that will likely result in layoffs, Simon & Schuster cut 35 jobs and Thomas Nelson Publishers fired 54 workers. A top executive at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Becky Saletan, quit in apparent protest of a hold-down on acquiring new books.
KOMATSU TO CUT 400 TEMP JOBS
Komatsu Ltd., the world's second- largest maker of earthmovers, will cut 400 temporary jobs at its Oyama plant, north of Tokyo, to trim costs as the global economic slowdown crimps demand, Bloomberg news reported.
The jobs at the factory, which builds engines for construction and mining machinery, will be eliminated by the end of March 31, spokesman Hiroshi Sunada said today by phone. The company will also suspend assembly lines at its domestic plants for 2-4 days this month.
Komatsu and Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Asia's two largest makers of excavators, and rivals are paring output to counter weakening demand as the financial crisis pushes Europe, U.S. and Japan into recession.
SOTHEBY CUT JOBS AFTER 3Q loss
Sotheby's fired employees this week as demand for high-priced art follows real estate and financial markets south.
Sotheby's spokesman Diana Phillips declined to say how many jobs were eliminated. The company said in a filing that the board's three-man executive committee approved cuts reducing salaries and other related costs byUS $7 million in 2009, Bloomberg news reported.
Sotheby's will also take a fourth-quarter 'restructuring' charge, for severance, of $5 million.
PFIZER TO ANNOUNCE NEW CUTS
Pfizer Inc, the world's biggest drugmaker, may announce new job cuts by the end of next month as it works to curb spending before cheaper copies of its top- selling drug Lipitor flood the market, Bloomberg news reported.
The company, based in New York, is expected to fire workers in sales and marketing and will probably announce its plans in January along with its 2009 earnings forecast, said Barbara Ryan, a Deutsche Bank analyst, and Les Funtleyder, a health-care analyst at Miller Tabak & Co.
Pfizer has slashed 14,000 jobs since January 2007, when Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler announced a plan to trim spending by as much as $2 billion by the end of this year.
Pfizer now needs to cut even deeper because it doesn't have enough products in development to offset the more than $12 billion in revenue it will start losing in November 2011, when generic copies of Lipitor, a cholesterol pill, go on sale, the analysts said.
DUPONT PLANS 4.2% JOB CUTS
DuPont Co, the third-biggest US chemical maker, forecast a fourth-quarter loss and plans to cut 4.2 per cent of its workforce because of reduced demand for products used to make houses and automobiles, Bloomberg news reported.
DuPont is permanently closing plants at 10 production sites and idling 100 factories to reduce costs as the slowing economy hurts sales. Rival BASF SE plans to shut 80 factories and cut output at 100 more, and Dow Chemical Co. has promised to take 'radical actions' to reduce production.
OVER 4,000 JOB CUTS IN LONDON FINANCIAL SECTOR
Over 4,000 jobs have been cut in London's financial sector in the last week while 3,000 more are at risk in the Customs services across Britain.
As credit crunch bites, the City, which is the financial center of London, is suffering its worst single week for job losses since the financial crisis began 15 months ago, according to the free afternoon London Paper.
More than 4,000 jobs have been axed by major finance houses in just a few days, which could have a serious knock-on effect on the capital's retail and housing sectors.