LayoffBlog.com

More than 15,000 people took to the streets of Zaragoza in northeastern Spain Saturday to protest feared job cuts at the Opel auto plant by Canadian car parts maker Magna.

With Magna expected to cut 10,000 jobs, there are concerns throughout Europe over where the axe would fall.

Source: AFP

Air France said Friday it was about to launch a voluntary redundancy scheme to shed 1,500 jobs due to a decline in both passenger and cargo business.

Source: Asia One

China’s state-owned enterprises may unilaterally terminate commodities contracts as they try to cut massive losses from financial derivatives, an industry source told Caijing on August 28.

According to the source, China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has sent notice to six foreign financial institutions informing them that several state-owned enterprise will reserve the right to default on commodities contracts signed with those institutions.

Most investment banks may “just swallow” any losses arising from canceled contracts, the executive said, adding that any losses are usually made up for with compensating trades.

Source: Caijing.com.cn

An index of economic indicators rose in July for a fourth straight month, in another sign that the recession is bottoming, said a report released Thursday.

The Leading Economic Index rose 0.6% in July, after a 0.8% increase the previous month, according to a report from the Conference Board, which has a membership of executives from around the world.

Source: CNNMoney

The Munich-based company, once one of the world’s biggest fashion brands, german fashion company Escada AG said it will probably file for bankruptcy protection Thursday. Escada operates 182 of its own shops and 225 franchise shops in more than 60 countries, employing about 2,300 people.

Source: Forbes, AP

U.S. hard disk maker Seagate Technology Ltd.Tuesday said it will close down its Singapore hard disk drive manufacturing plant by the end of next year and lay off 2,000 workers as a result.

Source: NASDAQ.com

The high-tech industry might finally be hitting rock bottom, according to Forrester Research, which Tuesday forecast global IT spending to decline by nearly 11% in 2009 before vendors and end-user organizations begin to see some signs of recovery later this year and early next.

Source: NetworkWorld

Oracle Corp.’s fiscal fourth-quarter profit declined 7.2% as the stronger dollar continued to weigh on results. New license revenue, a key measure of software growth, dropped 13%. Oracle’s stock has been rebounding since hitting a three-year low in March, shares were up 2.8% to $20.44

Source: WSJ

MySpace said Tuesday that it will cut 300 international positions and close at least four offices outside the U.S. as it looks to cut costs and narrow its territory coverage.

Source: AP

U.S. and European stocks tumbled, sending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index down the most in two months, as the World Bank said the recession will be deeper than previously forecast.

Source: Bloomberg

Adobe Systems Inc.’s (ADBE) fiscal second-quarter profit dropped 41% on lower sales and margins. Product sales, the bulk of Adobe’s revenue, declined 22%, while revenue from service and support slid 2.1%.

Earlier this year, Adobe also said it planned to cut around 600 jobs and undertake other cost-cutting measures to compensate for lower sales.

Source: WSJ

General Motors has reached a preliminary agreement for the sale of its Hummer brand of large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks to a machinery company in western China with ambitions to become a carmaker.

G.M. said that the deal would save about 3,000 jobs in the United States, including those at its 153 domestic dealerships, and that Hummer would remain based in the United States.

Source: NY Times

Sweden’s Volvo Group has cancelled plans to lay off 600 employees after striking a deal with Swedish unions to reduce their working hours instead, the company said in a statement Friday.

Under the agreement with IF Metall, the Swedish metal workers union, hours will be reduced by 20 percent and pay cut by a maximum of 8.0 percent for the period from June 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.

A Volvo Group spokesman said employees normally work around 37 hours a week on average.

Source: AFP

Finnish national carrier Finnair Oyj will this week start talks with staff over cost saving plans which could include up to 1,200 job cuts, the company said on Wednesday.

Like other airlines, Finnair has been hit hard in the recession as people fly less. The company has cut capacity and jobs as a result, saying in late April over 6,000 staff were affected by temporary lay-offs alone.

Source: Reuters

Hewlett-Packard Co. will cut another 2% of its work force, on top of the 25,000 it plans to eliminate because of its merger with a giant IT services company. On a conference call Tuesday to discuss the company’s latest fiscal results, HP Chief Executive Mark Hurd said the reductions will take place over the next 12 months.

HP also has reduced employee salaries by 5% on up, and of late has also been reducing the amount of real estate it rents or owns.

Source: CNNMoney, DowJones

(Update 1):  Hewlett-Packard Co. will cut 2 percent of its employees, about 6,400 people. [..] Overall, H-P has about 321,000 workers. It has 4,000 workers in Ireland and plans to add 500 jobs near Dublin, though it also cut some jobs there. It also has a big presence in India. The company employs about 5,000 people in the Sacramento area.

Source: Sacramento BizJournal

Nike Inc will slash 5 percent of its 35,000-strong global workforce in a sweeping overhaul to boost competitiveness. Nike has already halted production at three of its Chinese factories. About 500 positions will be axed at about 500 positions at its HQ, Beaverton, Oregon.

Source: Reuters

Motorola posted a first-quarter net loss of $228 million, or 10 cents a share, compared with a loss of $190 million, or 9 cents a share, a year ago when there were fewer shares. Motorola said it is ahead of schedule in its cost cuts and raised its full-year cost-savings target by $200 million to $1.7 billion.

Source: WSJ

Apple (AAPL) is cutting costs as its retail division underperforms the rest of its business: In a SEC filing (via CNET), the company reported that it now employs 14,000 full-time-equivalent retail workers, down 1,600 from the end of 2008. That’s a roughly 10% cut.

Apple’s overall sales increased 9% year-over-year to $8.16 billion in the March quarter.

Source: Silicon Alley Insider

Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson on Friday said it would cut 2,000 more jobs after it swung to a loss of 293 million euros (384 million dollars) in the first quarter of the year.

“The additional cost saving programme announced today will include a further reduction in the global workforce of approximately 2,000 people,” the company said in a statement.

Source: AFP

Qantas Airways Ltd., Australia’s largest carrier, forecast a record second-half loss and will cut 1,750 jobs as demand for business and first-class travel plunges on the global recession.

The job cuts, equivalent to about 5 percent of the workforce, are the deepest since Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce took over five months ago. Qantas became the latest carrier to defer delivery of the Airbus SAS A380, the world’s largest commercial plane, amid the recession and a drop in premium travel since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. last year.

Source: Bloomberg