NightBlogger

Source: KSLA — “We lost 2 billion dollars and like any other business we have to stay afloat.” And to keep from sinking, the United States Postal Service is considering cutting thousands of jobs nationwide. Lavelle Pepper with the post office in Shreveport says they too are feeling the affects of the same disease hitting the country… a struggling economy. “We employ about 685,000 people. If we do layoffs it would include clerks, carriers, mail handlers across all crafts.”

Pepper says the postal service is looking to eliminate 40,000 jobs nationwide. There’s not an exact number on how many of those could be from the Ark-La-Tex. Pepper says workers who are not part of union with six or less years of service would likely be the first on the chopping block. “We’ve identified 16 thousand people that are not covered under contract. We’ll see what those numbers add up to.”

The postal service is also offering early retirement packages to workers over the age of 50 who have more than 20 years on the job. But according to pepper it may not be enough. “The preliminary numbers look like it’s not going to be enough and we may have to do something else.” But despite what may happen, Pepper says customers will not feel the pain they’re going through. “The general public when it takes place won’t se any decrease in service.. They largely won’t know about it.”

(Bloomberg)
General Motors Corp., the largest U.S. automaker, is cutting additional salaried jobs and suspending some employee benefits as it tries to conserve cash amid slumping sales in the U.S. and Europe. Salaried employment will have to be reduced by more that the 5,000 jobs originally planned, GM said in a letter to executives. The Detroit-based company will also temporarily halt matching payments of as much as 4 percent to nonunion employees’ 401(k) savings plans Nov. 1 and end programs to assist with tuition and adoptions in January, spokesman Tom Wilkinson said. “The global economic outlook remains very concerning,” GM said in the letter signed by Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner and Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson. “As a result, actions are being taken throughout GM’s global operations to address our increasing need to conserve cash.” More

Patrick Thibodeau
(Computerworld) The collapse of Wall Street may prompt financial services firms to increase their use of offshore outsourcing and cut more jobs in the U.S. on top of the layoffs they have already announced. And that job cutting will happen even with a taxpayer-backed $700 billion bailout. These firms will be under too much pressure to cut costs, and offshore outsourcing will be one way to do it, according to outsourcing consultants. The financial services industry, including banking and insurance, is already the most aggressive industry in the U.S. when it comes to offshore outsourcing. It is the biggest single source of revenue for Indian offshore companies. More

You have heard that Fannie and Freddie, their gentle names notwithstanding, may cripple the financial system without a large infusion of taxpayer money. You have gleaned that jobs are disappearing, housing prices are plummeting, and paychecks are effectively shrinking as food and energy prices soar. You have noted the disturbing talk of crisis hovering over Wall Street. Something has clearly gone wrong with the economy. But how bad are things, really? And how bad might they get before better days return? Even to many economists who recently thought the gloom was overblown, the situation looks grim. The economy is in the midst of a very rough patch. The worst is probably still ahead. Job losses will probably accelerate through this year and into 2009, and the job market will probably stay weak even longer. Home prices will probably keep falling, shrinking household wealth and eroding spending power. “The open question is whether we’re in for a bad couple of years, or a bad decade,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, now a professor at Harvard. More

AMR Corp. will shrink to its smallest workforce in two decades by reducing its headcount by 6,500 or more jobs by year’s end. The 8 percent cut in jobs will leave AMR, parent of American Airlines Inc., with fewer than 80,000 jobs, a level it hasn’t seen since 1988. In a first step toward making the cuts, American has informed its flight attendants’ union that it may furlough 900 flight attendants as of Aug. 31. “These are difficult but necessary changes, given the unprecedented challenges we face with overcapacity in the industry, skyrocketing fuel prices and a worsening U.S. economy,” AMR spokesman Tim Wagner said Wednesday. More

Employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy’s fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent. The latest snapshot of business conditions, released by the Labor Department on Thursday, showed continued caution on the part of employers who are chafing under high energy prices and are uncertain about how long the economy will be stuck in a sluggish mode, reflecting fallout from housing, credit and financial troubles. Since the beginning of 2008, roughly 400,000 people have lost their jobs, CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor reports. More

Citigroup, the New York-based global bank, is set to lay off thousands of people from its worldwide investment-banking division, the Wall Street Journal said. Staff losing their jobs are expected to be notified on Monday, the Journal said. The job cuts are part of a plan to reduce about 10 per cent of the investment banking group’s 65,000 staff, it said. Citigroup officials have made no comment. Citigroup, along with much of Wall Street, is recovering from bad investments after losing billions of dollars on mortgages and loans to already indebted people. It was not immediately clear if the cuts were in addition to the 9,000 announced in April when it also reported a $5.1 billion first-quarter loss. About 4,200 job cuts were also announced late last year. More

DALLAS (AP) — Continental Airlines said Thursday it is cutting 3,000 jobs and reducing capacity by 11 percent, citing record fuel costs that have pushed the industry into its worst crisis since 2001. It also said its two top executives will forgo pay for the rest of the year. The job cuts represent about 6.5 percent of the company’s work force of 45,000.

Houston-based Continental said it will begin pulling back on flights in September, when departures on its mainline operations will drop about 16 percent below September 2007 levels. Fourth-quarter capacity will fall 11 percent. More

1290whio.com
MIAMI TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Lexis-Nexis says it will eliminate 320 jobs from its Miami Township campus by early 2009. The positions will be moved to a firm in India under the terms of a new contract reached by Lexis-Nexis’ parent company. A company spokesman says the operation on 741 just south of the Dayton Mall will remain integral to the corporation’s global mission. He says Lexis-Nexis is committed to the Dayton area, and there are no plans to close the facility.