Berkshire Cuts 3,000 Jobs After Demand Falls for Carpet, Bricks

[TwixVoy]

Source: Bloomberg

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. cut about 3,000 jobs since December after customers scaled back orders for building-related materials.

Berkshire and its subsidiaries employ about 222,000 people, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said today in a regulatory filing. That’s 1.3 percent less than the figure the company reported six weeks ago, and almost 10 percent below the 246,083 disclosed in the company’s 2008 annual report.

“If you look at our carpet business, our brick business, our insulation business, all of those businesses have had significant reductions in employment,” Buffett said in an interview in Omaha on Jan. 20. “The day the orders come in, we hire back. But there’s no reason to hire people if they don’t have anything to do.”

Berkshire joins employers including retailers Macy’s Inc. and Home Depot Inc. that have fired workers amid a recession that pushed U.S. unemployment to a 26-year high in October. The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose to 480,000 last week, the most since December, Labor Department figures showed today.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amK7hwfclzGE

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Like dominoes falling.

Banks overextend and fail ---> Wall Street and the Stock Market atrophy ---> Shareholders are less wealthy --> Jobs are shred ---> Cut-back on mortgage applications ---> McMansions aren't being built and homes aren't being upgraded ---> Companies like Berkshire contract dramatically.

[OhioChick]

2. So much job loss continuing....what's that about a recovery and for whom? n/t

[fasttense]

3. Be careful out there. I suspect the next sector to fail will be Agribusiness.

and people will starve.

[Edweird]

4. Your 'jobless recovery' in action! Isn't it magnificent?

[Lost4words]

5. No Surprises here,, Zero has changed ZERO! nt

:banghead: :argh: