More Layoffs: AT&T, DuPont, Credit Suisse, Belden, Viacom, Adobe

The barrage of bad news continued Thursday as a number of companies announced layoffs:

• AT&T (T) said it will layoff 12,000, 4% of its total workforce.
• DuPont (DFT) said it will layoff 2,500 full time and 4,000 contractor positions, with more to come in 2009.
• Credit Suisse (CS) said the company will layoff 5,300, 11% of its total workforce, primarily from its investment banking division.
• Belden (BDC), a St. Louis, MI-based manufacturer, said it will layoff 1,800, 20% of its workforce.
• Viacom (VIA.A) said the company will layoff 850, 7% of its total workforce.
• Adobe (ADBE) said the company will layoff 600 people.

Disclosure: None

Comments

[Levar Berry:]

Excuses.... It sure does make it easy to can people when everyone is doing it. AT&T is on the up swing... so my guess is they are using this time to get rid of dead weight.

Adobe still had some left over Macromedia weight to chop.

So where are all these people going to find work??

2008 Dec 05 09:23 AM

[shari greer:]

Yesterdays' Dallas Business Journal made a big faux pas when the
headlines regarding AT&T slashing 12,0000 jobs was noted on the same
page, that they had just given away a million dollar grant to a local
charity. Charity begins at home, and the 12,000 workers who are
losing their jobs would surely agree. The market will be flooded with
unemployed workers, and the only business that will thrive are the
job boards,,,, such a sad state of affairs.

2008 Dec 05 11:19 AM

[Industrial ...:]

Re: So where are all these people going to find work?

The majority of the US economy is ... [drumbroll please] ... small business! Of course, Fortune 1000-, 500-, 100 gets all the media attention.

The upside to the economy taking a hit is the potential than innovation will come forward. I forget who the technology executive was who used to say it, but they said that they worried little about their biggest competitor as much as they did someone working in their garage on the next big thing.

The downside to the economy taking a hit -- and hoping for innovation -- is that these types of companies need capital. Perhaps people will be able to get funding the old fashioned way, borrowing from outside the major financial industry. Look at the microloan industry in developing nations, for example.

2008 Dec 05 01:46 PM

[bittered eX...:]

Ya know, when I was just a child, my mother would make me come back in the house to clean up whatever mess I made. It was only fair to her, and to myself, to teach me how to be responsible. Well, where the F&@k is "Chief In Command" Supreme General Geroge W. Bush? He just disappeared off the radar with his Neo-chronies and his Freemason brothers. How can a captain of a ship not know that this was gonna happen? Oh wait, doesnt a captain go down with his ship when its sinking, or better yet, wouldnt a good captain come to the rescue of his sinking ship? Or stay aboard to save it with the new captain? I deeply suspect that this was all planned out, stretched out to the end of his term, and so much of this money "gathered" from around the world by investment scams, was funneled into the ex-pres' little greedy fingers. Call it conspiracy theory, but these have been around forever, and even when we think of our civilization as more advanced and civilized than ever before, there's still people who conspire to stick it to our rear end so they can profit. Yeah, I'm pissed!! Fortunately, I already lost my job and home back in '02, so at least I wont be on a rampage......

Feb 13 03:15 PM