Marketplace

Feeling lonely in the carpool lane?

Never mind long commutes and the promise of a faster-moving HOV lane... Not even sky-high gas prices have convinced Americans to rideshare. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show more people than ever are driving alone to work and carpooling figures are dropping. The number of people taking public transit, however, seems to be holding steady.

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Countrywide swings the axe

Looks like the nation's biggest mortgage lender is getting smaller. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Countrywide Financial has started laying people off, citing an internal e-mail sent Friday by a senior official at the company. We don't know yet how many people are losing their jobs, but the cuts are reportedly in the Full Spectrum unit which handles loans between prime and subprime.

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Even the suits are starting to feel it

Wall Street types won't exactly get coal in their stockings this Christmas, but a group that tracks Wall Street bonuses says they'll probably be 5 percent smaller than last year. It's hard to feel too sorry for these folks considering the average bonus last year was $220,000, but some traders will have it a lot worse. The Options Group says one out of every three people who sell mortgage-backed securities could lose their jobs.

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Running out of real estate

The past decade has been a brilliant time to be a real estate agent, but with home prices plummeting and buyers short on loans, some agents are thinking about a career change. The National Association of Realtors says for the first time since 1997, it's gonna have a drop in membership. About 4 percent. Last year, the group had 1.4 million members, nearly twice as many as a decade ago.

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Housing jobs disappearing fast

It's been a while since one industry has seen so many job losses, so quickly. In the past week, mortgage lenders have laid off more than 12,000 people. Yesterday, Lehman Brothers closed its subprime business. Accredited Home Lenders shut down 65 branches. HSBC closed an office. For the year, we're talking 40,000 jobs so far, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas. The last time we saw something like this was after 9/11 when some 100,000 airline employees lost their jobs.

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EarthLink dropping half its workers

EarthLink is cutting about half its workforce — 900 jobs — and closing four offices in an effort to reduce operating costs. The Internet service provider and its rivals are struggling to generate revenues as more and more dial-up customers sign up for high-speed service from cable and phone companies. Wall Street liked the plan: The announcement shot the company's shares up 7 percent.

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Countrywide job cuts getting wider

Struggling mortgage lender Countrywide Financial is dropping another 900 jobs nationwide, mostly in mortgage divisions. This is in addition to 500 positions eliminated last month. In a statement, Countrywide says the latest round of layoffs came in response to the troubled housing market and economic conditions. In recent weeks, the company has borrowed $11.5 billion and sold a $2 billion stake to Bank of America to keep operating its retail banking and mortgage lending businesses.

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Bad job news. Very bad.

We keep hearing that the subprime lending mess probably won't bring down the broader economy, but this morning's jobs report suggests otherwise. For the first time in four years, employers fired more people than they hired in August. The net result was a loss of 4,000 jobs. This caught economists completely off guard — they'd predicted that companies had added 110,000 jobs last month — and Wall Street is reeling in early trading.

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Not-so-warm welcome for Murdoch

Meeting your new boss always seems to be a little awkward, especially if there are hundreds of not-so-flattering posters in the office. That was the case yesterday at the Wall Street Journal when Rupert Murdoch stopped by. It was the first visit for the media mogul since his News Corp sealed a $5.6 billion deal to buy Dow Jones, the Journal's publisher. Murdoch's appearance came amid strained contract negotiations with the Dow Jones Labor Union over health care and pay raises. Aisles of the Journal's headquarters were adorned with posters put up by union members, showing Murdoch with a suitcase full of cash and the slogan "show us the money."

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Retirement plan for Countrywide employees: Sue

Employees at struggling mortgage lender Countrywide say they were kept in the dark about the company's troubles, and now they're taking action. A lawsuit filed against the company this week claims its financial problems have hit workers' 401K accounts hard and that Countrywide stock continued to be offered as an investment option when it was no longer prudent. The suit claims the retirement plan lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Countrywide last week announced plans to lay off around 12,000 workers.

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Want profits? Put some women in the boardroom

Females are a factor when it comes to big profits. A new study shows companies with the greatest number of women board members usually have significantly better financial performance. The report is being released today by Catalyst, a nonprofit group that promotes women in executive roles. Catalyst looked at financial results, such as return on equity, at the 500 largest U.S. corporations. Those with at least three women directors had notably stronger results on average. The correlation was found throughout a variety of industries.

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Some GE employees looking into dim future

As more energy-efficient lightbulbs switch on across the globe, General Electric will switch off facilities making old-fashioned bulbs. The Wall Street Journal reports GE will shutter 7 of 54 plants and warehouses that deal with the company's 128-year-old incandescent bulb business. The closings are expected to happen by November of next year and will mean about 1,500 layoffs. GE previously laid off 3,000 employees in the incandescent unit.

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Looks like the news is gonna be reruns, too

TV and radio news writers at CBS could soon be walking the picket line with other writers.
About 500 unionized news writers are expected to approve a strike authorization tomorrow.
The CBS News employees are represented by Writers Guild of America East. They've been working under an expired contract since April 2005. Drama and comedy writers are entering the second week of the entertainment industry strike that's shaken network and cable television.

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Strike talks resume on several stages

Striking TV and movie writers are set to resume talks with studios and networks today. The Writers Guild of America went on strike November 5 over payment for work that airs on the Internet. Writers want more money when movies and shows are sold to sites like Apple's iTunes. Talks for another showbiz strike are already underway. Broadway stagehands resumed negotiations with theater owners and producers yesterday -- 26 theaters have been dark for more than two weeks. It's estimated the Broadway strike has cost New York City $2 million a day.

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Start spreading the news: Broadway's back

Theaters are racing to reopen for business today after stagehands and producers reached a tentative agreement to end a 19-day strike. The settlement came last night after three days of marathon bargaining sessions. The strike has cost producers and New York City millions of dollars.

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Hope you like your coworkers...

The cost of business travel is expected to go up about 7 percent next year. So guess what? You might have to bunk with your co-worker. A survey by Orbitz found 24 percent of business travelers have been required to share a room on the road. In New York, the cost of a hotel room is up 14 percent over last year - 318 dollars a night.

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Writers: Breaking negotiations is a violation

Striking writers in Hollywood have filed an unfair labor practices complaint against studios.
Union leaders claim the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers violated federal law by breaking off negotiations. The Writers Guild of America is also demanding that studio heads return to the bargaining table to stop the six-week strike. Talks broke down December 7, when producers refused to bargain further unless writers dropped several proposals. One included the authority to unionize writers on reality shows and animation projects.

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Writers going straight to the source

The union representing striking Hollywood writers has told its members its going to try something different. Instead of dealing with the umbrella organization for studios and producers the W-G-A says it will now go directly to individual companies. Talks broke off between the WGA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers December 7th.

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And the award for stopping the show goes to . . .

Seven weeks of the Hollywood writers' strike, a few weeks of watching re-runs on TV . . . I bet you are looking forward to some classic award shows with fancy red carpets and hilarious jokes by the hosts. Guess what? Someone writes those shows, too. And the Writers Guild of America just said it will not allow its members to write for the Golden Globes or the Academy Awards.

Jon Stewart is set to host this year's Oscars. And he's a member of the Guild. And if that's not enough to ruin the party, the Guild also denied the use of clips from movies and past awards programs for the upcoming ceremonies.

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CEOs: Yep, we do make too much.

A lot people think CEOs are overpaid. Even CEOs. A new poll from Bnet.com finds that 64 percent of top executives view compensation as excessive. That compares to 77 percent of all employees.
The poll didn't ask whether the CEOs would take a pay cut, though.

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Big profits mean big bonuses

This year we've seen a good number of Wall Street CEOs' resignations. But there is one chief executive that not only did not lose his job, but is getting a holiday little present. Little as in $68 million. That would be the size of the bonus that Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, is pocketing. He did keep his company on track and drove it to deliver a record profit this year, as competing Wall Street firms were reporting multibillion-dollars write-downs in the middle of the subprime meltdown.

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The best of drawn-out late-night TV

Some had writers, some didn't -- and you could tell.
Late night TV shows came back with fresh material last night two months into the writers' strike.
David Letterman has an agreement with the union to let writers work on his show and the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. But what got Letterman the most attention last night was his beard. Robin Williams wouldn't stop teasing him about it.

Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien went on without writers. O'Brien, also appearing with facial hair, showed off Christmas cards and tried to see how long he could spin his wedding ring. Leno took questions from his audience.

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How many CEOs heading for the door?

A lot of executives have left their jobs because of problems tied to the credit crunch. Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne is the latest to cave to shareholder pressure. But in 2007, there were actually fewer CEOs heading for the door than the previous year. Consulting firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas says 1,356 chief execs left their positions in '07. That's a drop of more than 8 percent from '06. But for the third straight year, the number of departures a month averaged more than a hundred.

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SAG wins best supporting union in WGA strike

There's a good chance NBC's Golden Globes ratings will be a bit lower this year. There won't be any ceremony this Sunday, just a news conference to announce the winners. NBC still plans to air that live. The writers on strike might be picketing outside while that's going on. The ceremony was cancelled because actors planned not to show up in order to support the writers. George Clooney said he belongs to six unions, and doesn't plan to cross any picket lines.

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Smoking: Bad for your health, good for the job

Non-smokers need not apply. The boss of a small IT company in Germany has had it with people who don't smoke. He fired three workers because they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment. The manager, known only as Thomas J, told a German paper: "We're on the phone all the time and it's just easier to work while smoking. I'm only going to hire smokers from now on." On January 1, Germany introduced smoking bans for bars and restaurants but you can still smoke in small offices.

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e-Bay CEO could make last bid

Meg Whitman may be ready to bid on retirement. The CEO of e-Bay is one of the most powerful women in business. The 51-year old would be following her own advice. She says no chief executive should stay in the job for more than a decade. Whitman's unassuming character made her popular with e-Bay sellers. The Wall Street Journal reports an official announcement could come within weeks.

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Yahoo preparing for more job cuts

Reports say Yahoo is about to lay off hundreds of workers. The company has 14,000 employees.
A final decision about how many jobs could go is expected by the end of the month. Yahoo's been beat-up by slow revenue growth and the popularity of sites like myspace and Facebook.

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Grammy awards on

The Grammy awards will go on. Striking Hollywood writers will be allowed to pen the ceremony for musicians. The Writers Guild of America says it's giving Grammy organizers an "interim agreement."

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Writers' strike nearing an end?

In Hollywood this morning, there're reports of an end to the writers strike. The was a major move forward over the weekend in talks between the Writers Guild and top studio exes. Variety calls it "driving to the end zone." We could have a deal this week. Now the challenge is restarting the stalled production machine and getting TV series back on the air quickly.

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The economy: Not at your service

If we needed an unmistakable signal the economy is shrinking, here it is: Activity in the service sector fell big time in January. We get this number every month from the Institute of Supply Management. December's reading was 54. January's was 42. Any reading below 50 means contraction. And to put this in perspective, that reading hasn't been below 50 since March of 2003.

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Wonder what they'll use to toast

Here's a retirement party we wish we were invited to: The master distiller for Jack Daniel's is about to step down. Jimmy Bedford is the whiskey's sixth master distiller since the brand was registered in 1866. Bedford will retire at the end of March after 40 years with the company. The 68-year-old started working at the distillery as part of the construction crew during his high school and college days. When Bedford first started with Jack Daniels, sales totaled less than 800-thousand cases. Last year, sales neared 9.5 million cases.

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Race a core issue of Walgreens lawsuit

About 10,000 former and present black Walgreen's employees will be splitting a multimillion-dollar settlement in a federal racial bias lawsuit against the company.
The suit alleges that Walgreen's assigns black workers to low-performing stores and denies them promotions based on race. Walgreen's is the nation's largest drugstore chain. Under the settlement plan, the company has agreed to pay $20 million to employees. The plan was approved by a federal judge yesterday.

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Prius could help drive Japan's joblessness down

Japan's inflation rate jumped 1 percent last month, the quickest rise in 10 years. High prices for imported oil is blamed partly to blame for the increase. Other date released today shows the country's jobless rate climbing to almost 3.9 percent. Unemployment has been hovering around 4 percent in Japan since last Fall.

But Toyota Motors may help draw down the jobless rate a bit. The company is planning to boost production of the popular Prius hybrid at it's Japanese plants. Today's Nikkei business daily reports Toyota hopes to increase output to 450,000 cars a year by 2009. Last year, the auto maker built about 280,000 Prius cars.

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Texas is tops for corporate headquarters

The geographical center of the Fortune 500 has shifted south and west.

Texas is now the No. 1 location for the corporate headquarters of America's biggest companies. Fifty-eight now call the Lone Star state home, according to Fortune magazine. That's compared to 55 for New York, the previous No. 1, and 52 for California.

Experts say Texas offers companies a hard-to-beat package of low taxes, affordable land and lots of workers.

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Upcoming layoffs lead to strike talk at Thompson-Reuters

Reporters for the one of the world's biggest news wire services are talking about a walkout.
The Thomson-Reuters news staff are considering a strike in response to an upcoming round of job cuts. The downsizing has been expected since the London-based Reuters merged with Canada's Thomson Corporation last year. Management is expected to announce which positions will be axed within the next couple of weeks.

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More money to soldier on

The House Armed and Services Committee approved today a bill that gives the green light to over $600 billion in defense spending for next year. That includes a 3.9 percent pay raise for troops. On reconstruction spending, the bill would require the Iraqi government to pay $1 for every $2 the U.S. spends over there.

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Clock ticking down on The Newshour?

The Public Broadcasting System's long running prime time news magazine, The Newshour, is running short on cash.The financial problem began last summer, when Ag-giant Archer Daniels Midland dropped it's sponsorship after 14 years. ADM accounted for a big chunk of the show's annual budget and Newshour hasn't been able to fill the gap.This month, salaries were frozen and company contributions to staff 401k funds were suspended.

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Watch your work mouth

A poll by a recruiting firm shows a majority of executives have a big problem with swearing -- 80 percent say a foul-mouth is unacceptable in the workplace. More than a third of bosses have taken some action against workers for using inappropriate language. Two-thousand senior execs took part in the survey. Other top workplace peeves include gossiping and drinking on the job.

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I'm browsing, they're browsing, everybody's browsing

Look around your office today and check out who's surfing the internet. According to a new study on cyberslacking, that should be . . . everyone. The research busts the myth that only shirkers and goof-offs cruise the Internet or answer personal e-mails at work. What the authors found, however, was that everyone from senior managers to entry-level workers spend time on the Internet for personal reasons. The study says that might not be bad, either. If employees can deal with personal matters from work, they're better able to focus on their jobs. Now if you'll excuse me, I think they came out with a new Marmaduke today.

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The ax is chopping at Citigroup

The Wall Street Journal reports that Citigroup is planning major layoffs from its investment banking group. About 6,500 people stand to lose their jobs, and some may get their pink slips as early as today. On Thursday, the bank warned that there would be more "substantial" write-downs on the way for the second quarter. Citigroup shares dipped by almost $2 last week.

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