Time 11:18 AM Central

Goodyear to Lay off Up to 1,400 Workers This Month

The Associated Press Published: Oct 10, 2001

AKRON, Ohio (AP) - Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. said Wednesday it plans to lay off 1,400 employees, or 5 percent of its manufacturing work force, at five U.S. plants this month because of weak tire markets. The layoffs are in addition to the 8,000 layoffs the Akron-based company announced earlier this year, said Goodyear spokesman Chuck Sinclair. Most of those layoffs came from Europe, Asia and Latin America.

"This is certainly in response to the slowing economic market," Sinclair said Wednesday. He did not give specifics about Goodyear's current sales but said production cuts were necessary.

The layoffs will affect hourly and salaried workers at plants in Danville, Va.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Tyler, Texas, and Huntsville and Gadsden, Ala. Goodyear told workers at those plants Tuesday that it planned to cut production and move from continuous operations to five- or six-day weeks.

The layoffs will not result in any additional charges to earnings or savings beyond what it had already planned, Sinclair said.

"This (layoff notification) has been worked on for a while," he said.

Another Goodyear spokesman, Clint Smith, would not say whether the latest round of layoffs were permanent.

"Right now we have no timetable for recalling these people," he said. "These changes will stay in effect as long as the marketplace remains as it is."

Last week, Goodyear announced it would cut its dividend by 60 percent because of lower third-quarter profits. The company plans to announce its earnings Oct. 25.

Goodyear is the world's largest tire company and has about 100,000 employees worldwide.

In morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Goodyear shares were up 32 cents at $18.17.

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On the Net:

Goodyear: http://www.goodyear.com

AP-ES-10-10-01 1148EDT

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001

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Motorola Eliminates Another 7,000 Jobs After Third Straight Loss

By Dave Carpenter The Associated Press Published: Oct 10, 2001

CHICAGO (AP) - Slumping tech giant Motorola Inc. announced Wednesday it is reducing its work force by another 7,000 jobs, including an unspecified number of layoffs. It also confirmed it is headed for a fourth straight money-losing quarter.

The announcement came a day after the cellphone and semiconductor manufacturer reported a $1.4 billion loss for the quarter ended Sept. 30.

Faced by a weakened economy and slower industry growth in worldwide cellphone sales, Motorola already this year had announced 32,000 job cuts to a work force that stood at 147,000 last December.

President and chief operating officer Robert Growney disclosed to analysts in a conference call Wednesday morning the elimination of another 4,000 positions from businesses recently sold plus 3,000 more planned through other cuts and attrition.

That would increase the total cuts to 39,000 and trim the work force to approximately 108,000 by the end of the year - a reduction of about 26 percent. Growney indicated there could be more.

"Motorola will continue to take appropriate cost-reduction actions," he said.

Spokesman Rusty Brashear clarified later that many of the 4,000 positions cut through the sale of businesses are in the Integrated Information Systems Group, which Motorola sold to General Dynamics in August, and said the employees did not lose their jobs. He said the other 3,000 cuts will be distributed companywide, with specifics not yet determined.

The company has reported losses totaling $2.70 billion, or $1.23 a share, for the first nine months of 2001.

Executives said they anticipate a loss of 4 cents to 5 cents a share in the fourth quarter - a slight improvement over the previous two quarters but short of the 1-cent gain estimated by a consensus of analysts. Revenues are seen as little-changed from the third quarter, projected at $7.4 billion to $7.6 billion.

That warning sent Motorola stock down 1.6 percent, or 27 cents a share, to $16.45 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange after falling 67 cents Tuesday in anticipation of bad news.

The company Wednesday further reduced its estimate of industrywide cellphone sales. It now anticipates global sales of 380 million to 400 million phones in 2001, down 5 percent to 10 percent from last year and far short of the 600 million analysts once predicted. In 2002, it sees 420 million to 450 million units sold.

Analyst Greg Teets of A.G. Edwards and Sons called the results and outlook disappointing. But, he added: "I don't think it's indicative of Motorola's performance, but rather of economic and market issues. It's clear that the handset business is finally turning around."

Kicking off an uneasy earnings season for the tech sector, the company said late Tuesday its biggest business, cellphones, had finally returned to profitability and market share had improved two points to 17 percent.

But overall sales sank 22 percent from a year earlier, semiconductor sales tumbled 48 percent and even Motorola's claim of a $19 million operating profit from cellphones was questioned by several analysts in light of $2 billion in special charges for the quarter.

"There are a lot of adjustments that get them to profitability that don't make sense to me," said Vivian Mamelak of Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder. "There are still a lot of unknowns."

Christopher Galvin, chairman and chief executive, said the company had been anticipating a global economic recovery starting in early 2002 that would have boosted Motorola's performance. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that is no longer necessarily the case.

The third-quarter loss amounted to 64 cents a share, compared with earnings of $531 million, or 23 cents a share, in the third quarter of 2000.

Including pro forma adjustments and special charges, the operating loss was $153 million, or 7 cents a share, matching the estimate of a consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call.

Sales sank to $7.4 billion from $9.5 billion in the third quarter of 2000 and also were slightly lower than the previous quarter this year. Cellphone sales were down 16 percent to $2.7 billion, while semiconductor sales sank to $1.1 billion and were down 14 percent from the most recent quarter.

Motorola's stock is still up modestly since the attacks, in part because of a spike in U.S. demand for cell phones immediately afterward. But analysts question whether the increase can be sustained.

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On the Net:

http://www.motorola.com

AP-ES-10-10-01 1057EDT

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001