Ten global companies cut one lakh jobs in 2012, Hewlett-Packard tops the chart

New York: With an aim to save costs in troubled economic times, just 10 companies together have announced nearly one lakh job cuts worldwide since start of 2012 and they include giants like HP, Google and Citigroup. While these companies come from a wide array of businesses, the reason behind layoffs has mostly been cost-cutting efforts in their respective operations. Others who have announced major layoffs in 2012 so far are AMR Corporation, PepsiCo, MetLife, Hostess Brands, JC Penney Co, Procter & Gamble and Morgan Stanley.

Collectively, these 10 companies have announced layoffs affecting at least 95,500 jobs in their operations globally. The technology giant Hewlett-Packard tops the chart of corporate job cuts for the year with its announcement in May

to axe 27,000 jobs to save up to $3.5 billion. HP is followed by the Hostess Brands, the bankrupt maker of Wonder bread and Twinkie, which announced last month that it would eliminate 18,500 jobs as it liquidates the company's assets and sells off its brands.

Others who have announced major layoffs in 2012 are AMR Corporation, PepsiCo, MetLife, Procter & Gamble and Morgan Stanley.

Besides, AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, also announced in February that it would cut up to 14,000 jobs, while PepsiCo and P&G have also revealed plans this year to downsize their respective workforce. PepsiCo had said it would trim three per cent of its global workforce, or about 8,700 jobs, to save about $1.5 billion by 2014, in order to offset high commodity costs and increased spending on advertising and marketing.

On the other hand, P&G said it would eliminate 4,100 jobs in fiscal 2013 as part of an effort to trim costs by USD 10 billion over the next four years. Citigroup has been the most recent in the top-league of layoffs and announced this month itself that it would slash 11,000 jobs as part of an effort to save $1 billion.

At the beginning of the year, clothing house JC Penney announced restructuring measures that would affect 4,700 jobs, while MetLife trimmed a sizeable chunk of its workforce, about 4,300 jobs, early this year due to closure of its Texas-based home loans unit. Internet giant Google also said in August that it would cut 4,000 jobs from the 20,000-person work force of Motorola Mobility, which Google acquired earlier this year.

According to regulatory filings, about two-thirds of the proposed job cuts by Google would take place outside the US. Financial services firm Morgan Stanley in July said it expected a seven decline in staff from 2011, implying the loss

of about 3,200 jobs.

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