Thread: Recent Layoffs

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has been the least damaged by a global credit crisis, but the company still cut jobs at its investment banking division last week according to the Financial Times and plans to shed 10 percent of its workforce.

Just months after Washington Mutual cut more than 3,000 jobs, the nation's top thrift slashes 1,200 more jobs - about 2.6 percent of its workforce - as part of its ongoing efforts to minimize costs and return to profit. From BloggingStocks: Banking Falls Apart Again

Air Canada of Montreal said Tuesday that it will cut about 7 percent of its passenger capacity by the end of this year -- and along with it, as many as 2,000 jobs -- in a dire attempt to deal with rising fuel costs.

Newspaper publisher The McClatchy Co., which owns the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram among others, said Monday that it would cut 10 percent of its staff -- about 1,400 positions -- as the print industry struggles to retain advertisers.

On Friday, Delta Air Lines said it will cut twice as many jobs as it anticipated after roughly 4,000 employees volunteered for severance packages the airline offered in March.

The Conference Board business research group -- which maintains the closely watched Consumer Confidence Index -- says its barometer of the U.S. labor market fell in May to its weakest point since December 2004, and looks to fall further.

On June 5, Houston-based Continental Airlines said that will cut 3,000 jobs and take 67 planes out of service, citing record fuel costs and an industry in "crisis."

Also struggling to cope with record gas prices, United Airlines said June 4 that it would ground 100 of its fuel-guzzling planes and slash 1,100 more jobs.

On May 29, General Motors announced that 19,000 U.S. hourly workers, or 25 percent of its manufacturing workforce, will take buyouts and early retirement offers and leave the company by July 1.

On May 28, Ford said it plans to conduct involuntary layoffs of salaried employees by August as part of a restructuring in the face of slumping sales and record-high gas prices.