So much for those notions that GE maybe added jobs in 2010.
Its 10-K fresh out (nice timing, Friday late afternoon/early evening), showing that the company, run by the head of the White House’s special jobs creation panel, cut another 17,000 jobs last year.
The “good news” is that GE only cut 1,000 US jobs, while eliminating 16,000 positions overseas. Still, that was more than 83 people per month cut loose in America last year.
Since 2006, the company has shed 22,000 US jobs, while the overseas workforce is down just 10,000 since 2006.
Again, we are eager to hear Jeff Immelt’s and his panel’s ideas on actually creating jobs in the US.
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Monday told corporate leaders they must shoulder responsibility for lifting the shaky economy and vowed to “knock down” government barriers that hamper business growth.
But here’s my question: at a time when corporate profits are near their all-time peak, when profit margins are near their all-time peak, when we just pointed out how much the government has already done to goose corporate profits, exactly what government barriers are there to business growth?
Here’s a few more grafs (yeah, more newspaper stylings) from the story to flesh this thing out:
Mr. Obama, speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the large business lobby, said he wants the business community’s help in revamping the corporate tax code, expanding the economy and making government run more efficiently.
“We’re trying to run the government more like you run your businesses—with better technology and faster services,” Mr. Obama said at the Chamber.
In exchange for their help, Mr. Obama said, to applause, “I’ll go anywhere anytime to be a booster for American businesses, American workers, and American products.”
So what this largely boils down to is that the administration is going to lower corporate taxes. Great, one more giveaway. Now, what could possibly be the justification for that? Do not tell me high taxes are killing profit growth. Profit growth is doing just fine. Better than fine, actually.
Interesting to hear GE CEO Jeff Immelt will chair a new White House jobs panel tasked with finding ways to grow private-sector jobs. He runs a big company, but Immelt has shown more skill at cutting jobs, frankly, than creating.
GE finished 2009 with 18,000 fewer US workers than it had at the end of 2008, and US headcount is down 31,000 since Immelt’s first full year in 2002. During his tenure, GE workers based in the US as a percentage of total employees has fallen to 44% from 52%.
Maybe the company’s 2010 10-K due in February will show GE actually added jobs last year. But then again, maybe that’s just our imagination at work.
Addendum:
Here’s a dead-on take (as usual) from market strategist Joan McCullough at East Shore Partners, on this Immelt appointment:
Why do we give a flyin’ fig about this announcement from the White House? Because it hits home once again that nothing has changed. That the crony capitalism is as alive and well at the hands of a community organizer as it was with the rest before him. That the best interests of the US taxpayer are the last consideration of our rainmakers.
There’s a reason they call companies like Bank of America and General Electric bellwethers: earnings from the two blue chips illustrate the strengths and weaknesses in the economy; also, we discuss the strong industrial production report, and wonder whether it can be maintained.
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David Oreck, founder of a well-known maker of vacuums and air purifiers, says he’s upset his namesake company is in bankruptcy. He says Nashville, Tenn.-based Oreck Corp. was a perfectly profitable company when he sold his stake in it to a private equity firm in 2004. He blames the firm, New York-based American Securities Capital […]
