Incomplete list of publicly announced layoffs & shutdowns:
California: Sunnyvale based internet company Yahoo announced it will shutdown its last office in China, as many as 3-hundred jobs lost! Gold River based eHealthInsurance Services continues to blame Obama Care as it plans to eliminate 160 more jobs! eHealth administrators blame The Golden State’s Obama Care exchange program for stealing thousands of eHealth customers! Keck Medicine of USC issued several WARNS saying 94 people will become unemployed in may. Redwood City based video game maker Perfect World Entertainment laid off 18 employees, affecting their Star Trek Online ops. Boeing issued several more WARNs saying 196 Californians will become jobless in May!
Florida: Miami based Norwegian Cruise Line laid off an undisclosed number of employees, some reports said it was more than 2-hundred! The company failed to issue a mandatory WARN! It might be connected to the take over of Prestige Cruise lines last year.
Illinois: Yellow Cab of Chicago now chapter 11 bankrupt! News reports indicate the evil taxi company did so to stop the court award of $26-million USD to a victim of a high speed taxi crash! Chicago Transit Authority warns that state leaders plan to cut funding by 45% will result in layoffs and fee hikes. Warsaw Community School District laid off 11 employees and eliminated vacant jobs, and administrators are now pushing to jack up local property taxes. In Geneva, after 28 years Irish Sisters Imports shutdown, their lease expired and they couldn’t renew.
Louisiana: Texas based Parker Drilling laid off 35 employees in New Iberia, but issued a WARN saying as many as 297 people could become unemployed, because “We anticipate the downturn in our U.S. markets will be severe…”
Massachusetts: Boston weak law firm Goodwin Procter laid off 38 employees, blaming a crash in lawsuits.
Minnesota: Minneapolis based Target laid off an undisclosed number of HQ employees, without notice.
New York: In NYC, cable TV empire Viacom issued a WARN saying 264 employees in The Big Apple will become unemployed by July! It’s blamed on crashing advertising revenues caused by crashing ratings. In Suffern, Switzerland based legal drugs maker Novartis began a 4th round of layoffs, letting go 89 employees. By the time the drugs factory is shutdown in 2017, 525 jobs will be lost! Toys R Us announced they will shutdown their NYC Times Square store. The lease ends in January 2016, and administrators say it’s not worth it to renew. The store is known for its 20 feet tall animated T-Rex.
North Carolina: In Asheville, the owner of the brand new Katuah Market says the economy is so bad he’s already giving up: “We’ve been struggling ever since we opened and, for whatever reason, sales dropped off a cliff at the first of the year! At this point we can’t continue, we’d need to be 50% higher in sales.”-John Swann
Ohio: Homecare product maker Proctor & Gamble is shutting down the Sharon Woods Innovation Center by 2018, as many as 13-hundred jobs affected!
Oklahoma: What construction industry recovery? In Sand Springs, after 59 years Morrow-Gill Lumber Company shutdown. The family owners say they’ve had the business up for sale, but nobody wanted to buy it.
Pennsylvania: British empire United Kingdom based legal drugs maker GlaxoSmithKline laid off 150 people in the Philadelphia region!
Texas: Gainesville Foundry laid off 30 people. Administrators blame the oil, mining, earth moving, industrial machinery, power, construction and many other industries!
Vermont: Lyndon State College laid off five employees, blaming a huge decline in enrollment.
Virginia: Kroger announced another shutdown of a grocery store, this time in Portsmouth in April. The store was originally owned by Hannaford, but Kroger took that company over in 2000.
Washington DC: The U.S. ABC News (not to be confused with Australia’s ABC news) laid off 12 District of Columbia employees, saying they are “preparing for the future” .
Wisconsin: Veggie canning company Del Monte shutting down operations; their Sager Creek processing facility in Pulaski, and their warehousing and labeling facilities in Oconto Falls. Nearly 250 jobs will be lost by June! Company administrators would say only that it’s a move they had to take in order to keep Del Monte “strong”.
15 – 18 March 2015: “SUDDEN AND UNANTICIPATED EVENTS…”
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification
The U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) doesn’t count the hundreds of layoffs involving less than 50 people each, in its mass layoff reports. It also doesn’t count all the little ‘mom & pop’ businesses that shutdown. It doesn’t count people who get a severance for being laid off.