LayoffBlog.com

A downturn in orders at the Airbus factory at Broughton in Flintshire is to result 250 job cuts, unions have been told.

Officials have been in talks with management at the factory, which employs over 6,000 people, and say the company hopes most, if not all the cuts, can be through voluntary redundancies.

Source: News Wales

The Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) media group said Monday it would cut 1,000 jobs this year, over twice as many as previously forecast.

The job reductions, the latest blow to the ailing media sector, will hit its regional arm, although further cuts are planned “across all cost categories” at Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday.

Source: AFP

Measuring equipment maker Renishaw has announced it is cutting 500 jobs, with the majority of the losses set to go in the UK.

The group has experienced an “unprecedented” slowdown in demand for its products in recent months, forcing it to take action to cut costs.

Renishaw, which employs 2,240 people around the world, said most of its 1,500-strong UK workforce is based at four Gloucestershire sites.

Source: Press Association

ITV Plc, the U.K.’s biggest commercial broadcaster, said it will cut a further 600 jobs and omit dividend payments after posting a 2.56 billion-pound ($3.6 billion) net loss for 2008 amid dropping advertising sales.

ITV, whose shows include “Britain’s Got Talent” and “X Factor,” is under pressure because advertisers are cutting budgets as the U.K. economy slumps. Broadcasters are also struggling to expand their Internet businesses to make up for a decline in traditional advertising. Ad revenue will probably fall 17 percent in the first quarter, ITV said today.

Source: Bloomberg

UK manufacturing sector could see 140,000 job cuts in the year because of the economic downturn, the Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) said on Monday.

The engineering and manufacturing body, which surveyed 782 firms, forecast that manufacturing output would fall by 8.6% in 2009 and grow only 0.2% in 2009. Engineering output is set to shrink by 10.9% this year and rise by 0.9% next year.

Source ShareCast

According to AFP: “British mobile phone giant Vodafone said Tuesday the group would axe 500 jobs in its home market as part of a cost-cutting programme that was unveiled last year.”

Vodafone Group, the world’s largest mobile operator by revenue, on Tuesday unveiled plans to cut 500 jobs in the U.K. as it reduces costs to better cope with the worsening economic climate.

The company is the latest of a string of U.K. companies to announce job cuts since the start of the year. The layoffs, which represents about 5% of its U.K. work force, didn’t come as a surprise as they are part of the operator’s previously announced plan to reduce costs by 1 billion pounds by March 2011.

Source: MarketWatch

About 850 job cuts and the end of week­end working at the Mini car plant near Oxford are expected to be announced tomorrow in the latest blow to Britain’s manufacturing.

The marque, owned by BMW of Germany, saw global sales accelerate slightly last year only to drop 35% in January. The Mini workers hit by the decision are contract staff with few employment rights – brought in to work alongside full-time employees on the production lines, which built 230,000 vehicles last year. However, the move to reduce output and cut 850 out of 4,500 employees will also affect dozens of supply firms and thousands of their staff who depend on Mini.

Source: The Guardian

Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC), the US hotel operator, is planning more than 1,000 job losses under a $250 million (£175 million) cost-cutting program. HHC, controlled by Blackstone Group, announced plans to close its corporate headquarters in Beverly Hills, California, and move to Virginia last week. The 500 staff at its Watford[,UK] international center also expect big job cuts.

HHC declined to comment although industry sources confirmed that its offices in Watford, Dubai and Singapore would all suffer job losses. Insiders expect at least half the employees in Watford to lose their jobs as the old Hilton International headquarters becomes a European center.

Source: Times Online

U.K. unemployment rose in January to the highest level in almost a decade, threatening to erode support for Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the recession deepens.

The number of people receiving jobless benefits climbed 73,800 to 1.23 million, the most since July 1999 and the 12th increase in succession, the Office for National Statistics said today in London.

Source: Bloomberg

As former chiefs of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) made public apologies before the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, the group announced that it could cut up to 2,300 jobs in the UK.

The bank, which will shortly be majority state-owned, was brought to the brink of collapse last year under the leadership of its chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, and chairman, Sir Tom McKillop.

Source: Banking Times

GSK (NYSE: GSK) is putting the finishing touches to plans which will see in the region of 6,000 global positions axed as it faces up to the growing challenges in the industry.

Competition from generic manufacturers and doubts about company pipelines are posing a serious threat to the sector and, in a bearish note last week, ING analysts warned of an “intellectual property meltdown” as top-selling products come off patent and sales slow dramatically.

Glaxo’s UK rival, AstraZeneca, said on Thursday that it will cut 15,000 staff by 2013, 6,000 more than initially thought, while industry leader Pfizer has acquired US rival Wyeth for $68bn (£47bn) as it seeks a different route of consolidation.

Source: the Daily Telegraph

According to Reuters (ZURICH/LONDON): “A new round of job cuts at Swiss bank UBS AG two months after an earlier cull shows thousands more bankers may be on their way out as investment banks struggle with a crisis critics say they helped cause.”

Analysts at JP Morgan said they expect UBS to reduce its investment banking headcount by another 1,100 by the end of 2010, with Deutsche Bank cutting 4,000 investment bankers and Credit Suisse, which slashed in December 5,300 jobs, about 200.

“We expect staff levels in 2009 to be adjusted to 2005 levels, with revenues in 2010 to match 2002-03 levels,” they said.

News submitted by Alan Clegg

According to ComputerWeekly: “Compared to the previous quarter, there were 24.3% fewer jobs advertised from October to December than there were from July to September.

Some job roles saw larger drops in demand than others. Skills still in demand include Oracle, Java, SQL, C#, .net and SAP.”

“Finance is still the most affected sector, with a drop of 32.1% in demand. Software houses saw demand fall 21.6%, and manufacturing, retail and media all saw falls. The public sector was the only one to buck the trend, with 9.5% more jobs being advertised since the previous quarter.”

“Recruitment is down by 27.5% in the north east of England, 17% in Scotland, 22.1% in the south of England, and 10% in Wales and the west of England.”

The next year will see the sharpest contraction in the UK economy since the Second World War, the Ernst & Young Item club has predicted.

In its quarterly report on the state of the economy Item also predicted that unemployment will rise to 3.25m by the end of 2010 and hit 3.4 million in 2011.

Source: Accountancy Age

Barclays, the British banking giant, said on Tuesday that it would cut 2,100 jobs in its investment banking and wealth management units, a stark sign that the global financial crisis continues to deepen.

The cuts represent 7 percent of the bankers and back-office workers in what was once a big profit center at the bank but has become a drag as banking and investment activity has ground to a halt.

Source: NY Times

According to DailyMail, UK: “All 807 Woolworths stores will have closed down by January 5, the group announced yesterday.

A countdown for the closure of the chain, a fixture on the High Street for 99 years, was triggered last night after no one offered enough cash to buy it as a going concern.

The news means that some 22,000 permanent staff and 5,000 temporary workers will suffer a miserable Christmas and unemployment in the New Year.”

“The first 200 stores will close on Saturday, December 27, another 200 go on December 30, a further 200 on January 2 and the remainder on Monday, January 5.”

Update (12-17-2008): Woolworths website is currently down

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According to Bloomberg: “U.K. unemployment rose at the fastest pace since 1991 in November and the Bank of England considered cutting interest rates to the lowest ever this month as the recession tightened its grip.

The number of people receiving jobless benefits rose 75,700 to 1.07 million, the highest level since July 2000, the Office for National Statistics said today”

According to CBS Interactive and Techcrunch: “CBS says the number of Last.fm layoffs is less than 20, which would put it at about 20 percent.”

“One source puts the number of layoffs at as many as 40 people, mostly from LAst.FM’s London HQ, which has a total staff of 95″

Press Trust of India / UK, London: “Amid the ongoing economic crisis, the banking sector continues to be hit by mass layoffs with financial service major Credit Suisse and HSBC announcing additional 1,150 job cuts, a media report says.

According to the Financial Times, Credit Suisse will be trimming its workforce by 10 per cent leading to job loss for 650 employees, while HSBC said it was slashing 500 jobs.
Credit Suisse has been impacted by the loan writedowns, which has led to two quarters of losses for Switzerland’s second-largest bank this year, the report said.
A majority of the jobs at Credit Suisse would be cut in the investment banking and the support functions segment.”

“Earlier, HSBC said that it would cut 500 jobs in Asia as part of a shake-up of its global banking and markets division.

Besides, Citigroup had also announced it was shedding 52,000 staff worldwide, while Royal Bank of Scotland plans to cut about 3,000 jobs in its investment banking division.”