24/7WallStreet: The layoffingest companies

The Layoff Kings: The Companies That Cut The Most In 2008
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People who get to the end of 2008 and are still at work can be thankful. The unemployment rate will probably be over 7%. That does not count the people no longer looking for work. Add them in and the figure is probably over 12%.

The business headlines have been filled with reports of layoffs nearly every day in the last half of the year. A lot of these have come at big, profitable companies, which says something about what they expect in 2009. Obviously, many of the largest cuts came at firms such as Citigroup, which are struggling to stay afloat, or firms such as Bear Stearns which simply disappeared.

Here is the 24/7 Wall St. 2008 report on the twenty largest layoffs by company. If a firm cut more than once during the year, those numbers have been combined for an annual total. We extend special thanks to Challenger, Gray & Christmas for its help.

1. Citigroup announced layoffs of just over 73,000. The big bank announced last month that it would let over 50,000 people go on top of 23,000 already fired or that were in the process of leaving. New CEO Vikram Pandit has done an especially poor job of getting Citi back on track. The firm’s stock has fallen from a 52-week high of $31.14 to $7.83. Several stock analysts have cut their fourth quarter earnings estimates. The government’s bailout of the bank, put together last month, may not be enough. Citi may have to raise more capital and fire more people.

2. The Bank of America (BAC) buyout of Merrill Lynch will cost 35,000 people their jobs. There are overlaps at the companies particularly the research and investment banking divisions. A total of 11% of the combined workforce will be shown the door. The layoffs at the newly merged company may not be over. Bank of America is considered undercapitalized. It took on a lot of home mortgages when it bought Countrywide. The net effect of that is that its stock is off as much as Citi’s over the last three months. The BAC roll-up of Merrill and Countrywide probably won’t work without a lot more costs cut.

3. General Motors (GM) has said that its cuts for this year add up to almost 34,000 people. That number is modest compared with the number of jobs the company took out in 2006 and 2007. If the firm goes into Chapter 11 cuts for 2009 may go up again.

4. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is one of the most successful tech companies in the world, perhaps because it is ruthless as keeping costs down. It bought IT consulting firm EDS earlier this year and slashed 25,000 people while mashing the two operations together. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.247wallst.com/2008/12/the-lay-off-kin.html