Eastman Kodak to layoff 10,000 workers

[Bluebear]

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — In a week where Alan Greenspan said he expected the U.S. economy to keep growing and Wall Street seemed generally pleased with corporate performance, Eastman Kodak Co., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. warned about thousands of new layoffs.

“You get immune to it after a while,” longtime Kodak technician John Hladis said with barely a shrug when the scythe fell once more at the Rochester-based photography company, slicing away another 10,000 employees.

But some economy watchers are concerned that this latest flurry of job cuts — a byproduct of various trends such as outsourcing, mergers, automation, changing technology and consumer demands — may foreshadow trouble ahead. One thing is for certain: It was not a good week for American labor. In fact, it’s been an unusually torrid summer in terms of trimming payrolls.

U.S. corporations announced plans in June to cut 110,996 jobs — the highest monthly total in 17 months — and July’s toll could turn out to be steeper. Overall job cuts are on the rise in 2005, reaching 538,274 through June, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago-based employment research firm.

http://www.dailyherald.com/business/businessstory.asp?id=76205

[baldguy]

1. Just another sign of a robust economy in Bush's America.

[sasquatch]

2. I can't wait to see the housing market fall

A Repug friend of mine is a "Bush Christian" and he's in real estate.

[wli]

3. Bushanomics: destroying millions of jobs somehow "improves" the economy

[LeftyMom]

4. Kodak's not too surprising

since Kodak's not too popular in the digital photo market and film is becoming a niche market, divided between low end users who just haven't sprung for digital yet and the high end art photography users. They have a big development business, I'm betting a lot of the layoffs are there.

I'm not sure what's up with KimberlyClark though, people don't seem to have scaled back thier comsumption of overpriced heavily advertised chlorine bleached throwaway paper goods. Are they just consolidating plants or something?

[Bluebear]

5. Oh, Kleenex & Huggies will probably be made in China or Mexico

The only thing Americans will be manufacturing after a while is hamburgers.

[Digit]

6. Poor Rochester!

This is upstate NY, right? They don't NEED anymore job cuts.
Upstate NY was doing poorly in the real estate market last I heard.
Of course I know the taxes are horrendous.
Welcome to Bushworld...

[spuddonna]

7. Hubby and I were there for first 10,000 layoffs...

It was so sad... Such a great company, but its flaw was the same that has driven so many other good companies into the ground - stupid, greedy mgmt with no interest in R&D, that only cared about corp stock prices...

Both hubby and I worked in the IT dept., and we watched the CIO's come and go, with their 'golden parachutes', doing nothing as they moved on to the next big signing bonus...

Meanwhile, they'd cut the factory workers, give the upper mgmt 'bonuses' for improving the 'earnings outlook', and urge their R&D senior members to 'take early retirement'... not exactly a recipe for a company to survive longterm...