Companies confront layoffs during Q1 earnings

With nearly 33.5 million in the United States now unemployed, Europe facing its worst recession ever and 120 million now jobless in India, it’s clear that the impact of coronavirus on the job market was swift and widespread.

Stay-at-home measures have completely altered consumer demand and transformed how people are spending their money. With this unprecedented loss in revenues, companies have been forced to lay off, furlough, or cut the hours and/or pay of their workers. One in five American workers have now filed for unemployment since March and the most recent Jobs Report from the Labor Department shows the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression coming in at 14.7%.

As Q1 earnings season continues, we’re getting a glimpse at how executives are being forced to communicate the challenging HR decisions they’re confronting day-to-day. Learn how companies are communicating on Coronavirus’s impact on layoffs and hiring in the compiled commentary below.

*These impacts have affected every human. If you are able, please consider donating to or volunteering for causes on the front lines of COVID-19 relief. Here are a few of our favorites:

• Feeding America
• Direct Relief
• Meals on Wheels
• World Health Organization

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Here are the highlights. [Note: We are updating this post and our compilation post to reflect the most recent commentary. Last updated 5/8]

 

Takeaways:

• Major banks and technology companies are a bright spot with many communicating that they will not layoff or furlough their workers due to COVID-19
• Furloughs, salary reductions, hiring freezes and layoffs have all become common methods to reduce capital expenditures across almost every industry
• Companies in the leisure and hospitality industry have been hit the hardest, often laying off and/or furloughing employees in the hundreds of thousands
• Companies with large volumes of essential workers such as grocery stores are still hiring, however, they have slowed communications regarding their open roles in recent weeks

 

Booking Holdings (Earnings Call – 5/7)

We recently completed a strategic evaluation of OpenTable and KAYAK, announcing last week a series of actions to reduce operating costs. Unfortunately, this included the decision to lay off and furlough some employees. As a principle during this crisis, we have not reached first for employee reductions to lower costs. But after making adjustments in other operating expense areas, we made the tough decision to ensure the size and scope of our business is proportionate to the new realities of the travel market. We are now working with the other brands to examine their cost structures, and we will be thoughtful and deliberate in our evaluations.

In an attempt to minimize the impact on our employees during these difficult times, we have been evaluating and employing various governmental financial support programs. Booking.com recently announced that it would participate in the employee aid program offered by the United Kingdom. And we were able to place employees on furlough there, which has enabled employees to receive a significant portion of their full-time salary.

Hilton Worldwide (Earnings Call- 5/7)

At the corporate level, we’ve reduced executive salaries, furloughed nearly 2/3 of our corporate workforce, eliminated other nonessential expenses, including capital expenditures, and suspended share buybacks and dividends.

 

Liberty Media (Earnings Call – 5/7)

One of the key areas of focus has been the cost cap on team expenses. We’ve previously implemented a cap of $175 million for 2021 but now expect to move forward with a significantly lower cap. Just like our teams, Formula One has been evaluating our cost structure. We made some difficult decisions and furloughed over 50% of our workforce on April 1, with senior executives taking a voluntary cut in pay. We froze all hiring and pay review plans and also deferred a number of initiatives we plan to pursue this year. We recognize we may lose a bit of time in implementing some of these plans. However, we felt the current uncertainties warranted the actions.

 

Otis Worldwide (Earnings Call – 5/7)

Across our business, we responded with cost containment actions to address the evolving situation and associated sales declines. Our China team was focused on immediate actions, which did minimize the first quarter financial impact. Cost containment actions already underway include a global hiring freeze, reduction in travel and other discretionary costs, merit and salary deferrals, reducing executive pay and furloughs in certain locations. These are difficult but necessary actions, and our team continues to assess and adjust to address the evolving situation.

 

Raytheon Technologies (Earnings Call – 5/7)

Of course, also, we have stopped hiring. We’ve put a hiring freeze in place. We’ve deferred merits. We’re furloughing folks, both at the corporate office and across the commercial businesses. Also, we’ve furloughed people in the factories. And I expect there will be further reductions as we sort through all of these volumes.

The key is we don’t want to cut the talent so deep that when the recovery happens, we don’t have the right people. So we’re trying to be judicious. We’re trying to keep as many jobs as we can. And to that end, the legacy Raytheon businesses have 2,000 openings today for folks. And we are actively working to try and take engineering talent and other talent that we’ve got in the legacy UTX business and move those folks over to programs on the Raytheon side.

 

CBRE (Earnings Call – 5/7)

In response to these trends, we have taken decisive action to temporarily lower costs within our transactional business through furloughs of non revenue-generating staff as well as reduced nonessential costs such as promotional and travel and entertainment expenses

 

Iron Mountain (Earnings Call – 5/7)

As we have encountered this slowdown, we have made tough decisions that impact our fellow Iron Mountain colleagues. In an effort to keep our labor costs in line with levels of service activity, we have either furloughed, reduced hours or utilized other temporary reduction measures for approximately 1/3 of our global workforce.

 

Magna International (Earnings Call – 5/7)

In light of the suspension of production, temporary layoffs of employees have been inevitable. However, we have taken a number of steps to minimize the impact felt by our employees. These include maintaining employee benefits coverage throughout layoff periods, maintaining the number of days at full compensation during the layoff period during — through the utilization of vacation days, engaging emergency wage protection programs and providing top-ups to maintain full compensation levels for a certain period and providing regular communication to employees, including with respect to company programs to support their physical and mental health.

 

Howmet Aerospace (10Q – 5/7)

As a result, the Company is taking a series of actions to address the financial impact, including announcing certain headcount reductions and reducing certain cash outflows by suspending dividends on common stock and reducing the levels of its capital expenditures to preserve cash and maintain liquidity.

 

Dish Network (10Q – 5/7)

Due to the current economic climate, combined with changing needs of our customers and how we can best serve them, during April 2020, we made the decision to reevaluate our organization. This included a focused set of staffing reductions to align our workforce to best serve our Pay-TV customers

 

Zoetis (Earnings Call – 5/6)

We are carefully managing our expenses and doing scenario planning for the medium and long term, including hiring freezes and reductions to discretionary spending such as travel, entertainment and consulting. We have not had to engage in furloughs or salary reductions for our colleagues, thanks to the resiliency and diversification of our business and our strong balance sheet. We continue to regularly assess any long term needs depending on the duration of the pandemic and the resulting recessions. Like all companies, we’ve begun planning for the days when more of our colleagues will return to the workplace.

PayPal (Earnings Call – 5/6)

We took significant steps to assure our employees’ financial health well before this crisis. Our North Star is always to do the right thing for our employees, ensuring their safety, security and financial health. We made a commitment that no employee would be laid off as a direct result of COVID-19.

 

Lyft (Earnings Call – 5/6)

We also took care of our business. We have put an aggressive plan in place to strengthen our financial position, starting with decisive actions to reduce fixed costs. Last week, we took the difficult but necessary step to reduce our workforce, letting go of 17% of team members and furloughing nearly another 300. We also initiated a 3-month pay reduction for all salaried employees, ranging from 10% for most non-hourly team members, up to 30% for our senior leadership team and Board members.

 

Fortinet (Earnings Call – 5/6)

Total head count ended the quarter at 7,448, an increase of 24%, driven by increased investments we made to leverage the positive momentum in our business while seeing improving attrition rates over the last few quarters. We do not anticipate any COVID-19 related layoffs for the foreseeable future.

 

Alteryx (Earnings call – 5/6)

As a result of COVID-19 and the resulting macroeconomic deterioration, we immediately took a number of actions in response, including pausing hiring in the near-term until we better understand customer-buying behavior, although we will move forward with any outstanding offers and hiring will continue for critical roles and functions.

 

General Motors (Earnings Call – 5/6)

Looking at outflows, outflows are primarily comprised of 3 buckets: the ongoing cash costs, [CapEx] and unwind of negative working capital. On the cost front, we have aggressively reduced our ongoing costs through significant austerity measures and used a zero-based budgeting approach. Some of the more notable cost actions include significant customer advertising and other discretionary spend, compensation deferments and certain employee furloughs. And after these austerity measures, we expect our ongoing cash costs, including tax, interest and pensions, to be approximately $2 billion per month. These cost austerity measures will normalize as production and demand normalizes.

 

Shopify (Earnings Call – 5/6)

We are fortunate to have already been well outfitted for collaboration at a distance. So this shift was minimally disruptive to most employees day-to-day. Others whose primary work supported our office spaces are contributing in other ways, many supporting initiatives that directly impact our merchants. No one has been furloughed due to COVID.

 

Uber (8k – 5/6)

On May 6, 2020, Uber Technologies, Inc. (the “Company”) announced plans to reduce its operating expenses in response to the economic challenges and uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the Company’s business. Due to lower trip volumes in its Rides segment and the Company’s current hiring freeze, the Company is reducing its customer support and recruiting teams by approximately 3,700 full-time employee roles. In connection with these actions, the Company estimates that it will incur approximately $20 million related to severance and other termination benefits. The Company is evaluating other cost and will provide an update in subsequent SEC disclosures regarding such amounts, if material.

 

Disney (Earnings Call – 5/5)

Answer – Christine Mary McCarthy: Sure. Michael, on the furloughed employees, so the impact that we saw on our parks full segment for Q2 included fully paying everybody. We continued to do that until — in early April, when we did furlough, company-wide, over 100,000 employees. But most of those employees were in the parks segment by just sheer numbers. So while they are furloughed, we are still paying their portion of their medical benefits. So they’re not out-of-pocket for any of their benefits. We thought that was very, very important to do.

And when we think about our costs too for the parks, we think about it as 3 levels. There’s the fixed component, which is depreciation, taxes, property taxes and insurance. The big chunk of that, depreciation, is a noncash item. The other 2, obviously, are cash items. Then you have the variable costs, and those are cost of goods sold, and that’s where you do have significant flexibility pretty early on, on the time curve. And then there’s another chunk of costs where we would put in labor, and that is what we call semi-fixed. And they’re fixed in the short term, just looking at how long it took to do what we had to do to furlough employees. Once again, we’re not — we wouldn’t have done it until we had more information that indicated that the parks would be closed for not just a couple of weeks, but we’re now in 2 months. And it also includes — then we have more variable costs in that semi-fixed, and that includes the labor, also SG&A. So we’ve been taking measures there to eliminate whatever costs we can and other operating expenses. So the furloughed employees will benefit Q3, but we’ve also done things in the SG&A area that we believe are appropriate given the current state of being closed.

 

Xylem (Earnings Call – 5/5)

Question – Nathan Hardie Jones: So we’ve seen a lot of companies furloughing workers, reducing work weeks from 40 to 32 hours in order to increase these temporary cost reductions, which are impacting the decrementals in the second quarter. It sounds like you guys have taken a decision not to do that. Can you talk about that decision and what’s led you to that?

Answer – Patrick K. Decker: No. Actually, just to clarify, Nate, we are going to be taking those actions. And so those — some of those are underway. Some more of those will be coming here in the immediate term. I don’t want to get into the details on the call here as to what that is, but no, we are going to be taking those temporary actions. But it’s really in service to — we’re all in this together. So the faster that we’re able to move on to more permanent structural changes, obviously, the less deep we have to go in the temporary. But we — these are all going to be done in service to each other that we’re all in this together as one company.

 

L3Harris Technologies (Earnings Call – 5/5)

Answer – Christopher E. Kubasik: Yes. Robert, we’ve taken the actions in commercial aviation to reduce the cost with the operating expense maybe down $20 million for the remainder of the year. And we’ve been pretty aggressive with reductions in force and furloughs. But to your question, specifically on the engineering front, as of today, we have over 50 engineers that were working on the avionics products that have been redeployed to DoD work. And now that we’re all learning how to work remotely and a little more creatively, not many of those individuals needed to relocate. So I think it’s a good story relative to the engineering talent.

 

Dupont de Nemours (Earnings Call – 5/5)

Answer – Edward D. Breen: Yes, Steve, thanks for the question, and obviously, we’ve spent a lot of time on this topic. So as you know, we upped our structural cost savings in the last month or so from $90 million to $180 million. In addition to that, remember that we have another $165 million that is a structural change to the cost of the business that’s coming out from the DowDuPont merger and putting those businesses together. So in total, we have about $330 million, give or take, coming out of the system permanently. On top of that, we have about another $80 million to $100 million of what I would call opportunities that are T&E reduction, external contractor spend at our facilities. And we’ve eliminated the merit increases. We freezed hiring. So things that were in our plan, there’s about another, give or take, $80 million to $100 million that won’t get spent that was baked into the plan. So when you kind of sit back and look at it, we have benchmarked every function in the company, every business in the company, and we are getting the G&A expenditures to best-in-class benchmarking with the best companies out there.

 

TransDigm Group (8k – 5/5)

As previously disclosed on April 2, 2020, the Company has enacted cost mitigation efforts as a result of expected declines in our business caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These cost mitigation efforts include the following:

• Reduction in workforce by up to 15% to align operations with customer demand; these actions are in addition to the cost mitigation efforts implemented in the second quarter of fiscal 2020;
• Implementing one to eight-week furloughs at many businesses over approximately the next six months in response to business specific situations;
• Substantially reducing cash compensation for the senior management team for the balance of fiscal 2020; and
• Board of Directors will forgo annual retainer fees

 

Ferrari (Earnings Call – 5/4)

In spite of the fact that our facilities have ceased production since March 14, not a single employee has been furloughed or laid off and all have received their full pay during this period. We’ve provided medical support and assistance to our employees and their families and furnished vital in-kind monetary assistance to the communities in which they reside. Solidarity and empathy have been our guiding principles.

 

Tyson Foods (Earnings Call – 5/4)

The health and safety of our team members remains our top priority. We took early decisive action to provide workspace distancing, PPE and other protective measures. We’ve had no layoffs or furloughs and have extended $120 million of bonuses and improved benefits to our frontline team members. This will also allow us to quickly recover once we move past the effects of COVID-19.

 

Estee Lauder (10Q – 5/1)

In response to the impacts from COVID-19, we started to implement strict cost controls in January 2020 to help mitigate the expected loss of sales in mainland China and travel retail. In the fiscal 2020 third quarter, we took immediate actions to reduce expenses, including advertising and promotion activities, travel, meetings, consulting, and certain employee costs, including implementing a hiring freeze. Combined, these resulted in approximately $250 million of savings in the period. As the COVID-19 impacts rapidly spread throughout Europe and the Americas, the corresponding impact on net sales resulted in an operating margin decline. The cost controls put in place during the fiscal 2020 third quarter are expected to deliver an even larger benefit starting in the fiscal 2020 fourth quarter.

Additionally, we announced new cost saving actions on April 15, 2020, that are expected to have a greater impact beginning in May 2020. These include furloughs and similar unpaid temporary leaves of absence for many point of sale employees; temporary salary reductions for senior executives and other management employees; and a temporary elimination of cash retainers for the Board of Directors. Together, we estimate that these actions, combined with those implemented in the fiscal 2020 third quarter, will reduce operating expenses by approximately $500 million to $600 million in the fiscal 2020 fourth quarter. In addition, we expect to reduce capital investments (e.g., facilities and consumer-facing counters) by approximately $250 million to $300 million for fiscal 2020. We have temporarily suspended repurchases of our Class A Common Stock and have suspended the quarterly cash dividend that would have been paid in June 2020. In addition, as of April 2020, we raised an additional $2,200 million of cash by issuing $700 million of Senior Unsecured Notes and borrowing the full amount under our $1,500 million revolving credit facility. We will continue to monitor the impact of COVID-19 and adjust our action plans accordingly as the situation progresses. We stand ready to facilitate the recovery as soon as the market dynamics support it.

 

Avery Dennison (10Q – 5/1)

In addition, we are executing significant temporary cost saving actions to manage the economic downturn that has resulted from COVID-19.  These include deferrals of planned compensation increases, hiring freezes, overtime and temporary labor reductions, shift reductions and furloughs, temporary production shutdowns, and travel and other discretionary spending reductions. We anticipate that these actions will partially offset the negative impact on our business resulting from COVID-19.

 

Aptargroup (Earnings Call  – 5/1)

Moving to Slide 13. We are taking several cost-containment actions across the company due to the continuing impact of COVID-19. We are reducing temporary-labor headcount, holding in subcontracted work and modifying our production schedules. In our businesses where we face market softness, we have undergone regional and site-specific furloughs and requested that some employees use their vacation time during this period. We are following country travel guidelines and have eliminated all business travel and reduced all nonessential spending. We are also passing through price adjustments to our customers.

 

Ryanair Holdings (6k – 5/1)

As a direct result of the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis, the grounding of all flights from mid-March until at least July, and the distorted State Aid landscape in Europe, Ryanair now expects the recovery of passenger demand and pricing (to 2019 levels) will take at least 2 years, until summer 2022 at the earliest. The Ryanair Airlines will shortly notify their trade unions about its restructuring and job loss program, which will commence from July 2020. These plans will be subject to consultation but will affect all Ryanair Airlines, and may result in the loss of up to 3,000 mainly pilot and cabin crew jobs, unpaid leave, and pay cuts of up to 20%, and the closure of a number of aircraft bases across Europe until traffic recovers. Job cuts and pay cuts will also be extended to Head Office and Back Office teams. Group CEO Michael O’Leary, whose pay was cut by 50% for April and May, has now agreed to extend this 50% pay cut for the remainder of the financial year to March 2021. 

 

Southern Co (Earnings Call – 4/30)

Now turning to our recent progress. Although, overall, monthly production through March was largely consistent with the refined aggressive site work plan, mechanical, electrical and subcontract activities began to build a backlog to Unit 3’s aggressive site work plan at the end of March. That trend was exacerbated through April as we began experiencing impacts across the site related to the coronavirus pandemic, including an increase in workforce absenteeism.

Two weeks ago, in an effort to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, we announced our intent to reduce density on the site and take workforce down by 20%. As we work through this transition, we expect to see a decrease in near-term production similar to the sawtooth effects that we have experienced in the past. The longer-term objective is to gain operational efficiencies and productivity by reducing workforce fatigue and absenteeism. As we move ahead, we will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of our streamlined workforce.

 

Charter Communications (Earnings Call – 5/1)

In early April, we increased our wage for all hourly field operations and customer service call center employees by $1.50 per hour back to February. We also committed to raising our minimum wage for hourly workers to at least $20 an hour over the next 2 years. We’re paying employees in parts of our business like residential and SMBs direct sales, whose work has been put on hold. And to reinforce our commitment to employees, we announced that for 60 days, no employee will be laid off or furloughed. We have a great business with employees committed to our mission, and that will ensure that we’re able to excel through the eventual economic recovery.

 

Stryker Corp (Earnings Call – 4/30)

Answer – Glenn S. Boehnlein: Yes. At this point, just given sort of the fluidity of the situation and looking forward, I’m not sure that I can guide you to an exact sort of margin number. I will say that to the extent expenses are discretionary, what I’ve mentioned, travel meetings, consulting and many other things, we have curtailed those or discontinued those. We discontinued most of our hiring, and we furloughed manufacturing employees that are at facilities where we’ve slowed down or stopped certain lines. It’s really difficult to sort of predict our exact operating state. I do think some of those expenses, obviously, will come back as we ramp back up. But at this point in time, as I think about our future cost structure, I do anticipate that many of these things will be impacted and we’ll feel the impact from them throughout the remainder of this year and, frankly, on into 2021.

 

Dollar General (PR – 4/30)

Dollar General announced plans in mid-March to nearly double its normal hiring rate and add up to 50,000 individuals to support the heightened demand for the household essentials it carries. The Company received an overwhelmingly positive response from candidates looking to grow or develop their career or for those individuals whose prior employment may have been impacted by COVID-19. Between March 15 and April 30, Dollar General hired more than 43,000 individuals with thousands of additional applicants and candidates currently going through the interviewing and hiring process.

Dollar General continues to seek candidates to support opportunities across its store, distribution center, private fleet and corporate functions. The Company provides employees with competitive wages, world-class and award-winning training and development programs and benefits including day-one telemedicine eligibility and Dollar General’s Employee Assistance Foundation, as well as health insurance coverage options, 401K savings and retirement plans, tuition reimbursement, paid parental leave and adoption assistance to eligible employees.

 

WPP (IR Presentation – 4/30)

• Hiring freeze, freelancer review, delays to pay rises and stopping discretionary spend
• Exec and Board salary sacrifice
• In-year impact of £700-800m
• Further action on cost including reduced working hours, salary sacrifice, headcount reductions

Visa (Earnings Call – 4/30)

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve been in very close and regular contact with employees, clients, partners and governments globally to help them navigate these challenging times. Our foremost priority is the health and well-being of our employees and their families. To that end, I pledged to our 20,000 employees that there would be no layoffs in calendar year 2020 related to COVID-19.

 

Stanley Black & Decker (Earnings Call – 4/30

Together, these 2 categories represent about 60% of the $1 billion savings target, which means about 40% is compensation and benefits. Our approach in this area is to ensure that we are preserving our ability to reduce labor costs in a manner that allows us to treat our employees with compassion in these incredibly difficult times and to prepare us for a demand recovery at the appropriate time by making these actions as temporary as possible. The savings include salary reductions for senior leaders, temporary benefit reductions such as suspending 401(k) matching in the United States, a voluntary retirement program, furloughs, modified work weeks and finally, some reductions in force.

Today, about 70% of the actions are temporary, specifically the furloughs, pauses in benefits, sale reductions and the like.

 

Align Technology (Earnings Call – 4/29)

Question – Jonathan David Block: Joe, you mentioned protecting employees, no furloughs or salary cuts. I’m just curious about the competition. And has anything changed in the marketplace around the competitive landscape? We’ve heard some chatter about sort of, call it, cut back in the orthodontic divisions of some of the other players, but maybe you can elaborate on what you’re hearing or seeing out there.

Answer – Joseph M. Hogan: Hey Jon, I don’t want to be specific, but I mean, most of our competitors have had layoffs or cutbacks in some way. We’ve been — just been blessed with a really strong balance sheet going in. This allows us to have the flexibility and do it, as we do. We’re a growth business. You know that, Jon, well. We’re set out for 20% to 30% kind of growth, and we have to position ourselves for that. In that sense, making sure that our production capacity is ready, that our employee base is ready, too. Our sales teams are really critical in that sense, too. And it’s wonderful. We can see some of the investments like Invisalign Virtual Assistance and things that we’re working with, with customers right now, that we can launch those products and continue to drive those products going forward with a full force engineering team also.

 

General Electric (10K – 4/28)

Power is continuing to right size its business to better align with market demand and driving its businesses with an operational rigor and discipline that is focused on its customers’ lifecycle experience. We continue to partner with our customers, working through field service travel disruptions to effectively service their fleets to maintain operability.   As a result of expected volume declines from COVID-19 in the near term, we are taking several measures to offset these pressures. During the first quarter of 2020, Power had approximately 700 headcount reductions and notified approximately 1,300 contractors. In addition, we executed on a hiring freeze, are accelerating planned employee reductions where possible, and are initiating meaningful incremental headcount reduction plans in line with the demand profile.

Aviation has and is continuing to take several business actions to respond to the current adverse environment. We continue to partner with our airline and leasing customers to respond to an increased number of requests for short-term payment deferrals and are working closely with our airframe customers to align production rates for 2020. During the first quarter of 2020, Aviation took several measures including a hiring freeze, cancellation of salaried merit increases, and a reduction of all non-safety related discretionary spending, including capital expenditures and engineering and development efforts. Aviation also announced a reduction of approximately 10% of its total United States (U.S.) workforce and a temporary furlough impacting approximately 50% of its U.S. maintenance, repair and overhaul employees for 90 days. Additionally, Aviation announced a temporary furlough impacting its U.S. assembly operations and component manufacturing shops for approximately four weeks during the second quarter of 2020. Aviation is also working with the appropriate parties to properly address its global workforce.

 

Boeing (Earnings Call – 4/29)

We will be a smaller company for a while. We’ve worked hard to maintain the stability of our workforce, avoiding layoffs even though — even through the suspension of MAX production, doubling the length of time we pay employees impacted by the COVID-induced shutdown of Puget Sound, Charleston and other sites, bringing people back to work at those sites as soon as we safely could. But the sharp reduction in demand for our airplanes that we see out over the next several years won’t support the size of the workforce we have today. At this time, we are taking action to reduce our workforce by approximately 10% of our roughly 160,000 employees by end of this year through the combination of voluntary layoffs, attrition and involuntary layoffs as necessary. This is 10% of the total for our enterprise. We’ll have to make even deeper reductions in areas that are most exposed to the condition of our commercial customers, more than 15% across commercial airplanes and services businesses, as well as our corporate functions. At the same time, the ongoing stability of our defense, space and related services businesses will help us limit the overall depth of the cut.

 

Mastercard (Earnings Call – 4/29)

Our offices remain open wherever they have been allowed to do so. But the vast majority of our employees are working from home. Many people are dealing with new circumstances and unexpected challenges. We are helping our employees in every which way that we can. We are providing them with additional health benefits, paid time-off for those who need to care for themselves or their loved ones. We have assured our employees that there will be no COVID-19-related layoffs this year.

 

3M (Earnings Call – 4/28)

We are maintaining critical investments in organic growth through R&D, including in personal safety and other priority areas. At the same time, we are aggressively managing costs, a continuation of our relentless focus on efficiency and productivity improvements. We have already implemented sharp spending reductions, including a global hiring freeze, limiting our use of temporary contract workers and cutting indirect costs across the enterprise. In total, we expect these reductions to result in cost savings of $350 million to $400 million in the second quarter. We’re also adjusting CapEx plans as we delay or experience slowdowns in certain projects. And we have suspended our share repurchase programs as of March 20.

 

BP PLC (Earnings Call – 4/28)

And we have been enhancing psychological support for our employees because they are dealing with stressful demands. This pandemic is causing anxiety and job security is going to be a major concern. With that in mind, we have committed for 3 months to no BP employee being laid off so that we can all remain focused on what’s most important during this immediate difficult period.

 

American Express (Earnings Call – 4/24)

We decided to do no layoffs. And the reason we decided to do no layoffs is — there’s numerous reasons for that. Number one is humanitarian aspect of this. Number two is the disruption. To try and lay off people in a virtual environment is nearly impossible. And number three, we don’t know what the world is going to look like. And so while we’re not going to take layoffs off the table for the future, we certainly are taking layoffs off the table for the rest of the year.

 

Chubb Ltd (Earnings Call – 4/22)

First, to the extent possible, we have taken care of our 33,000 people around the world and endeavored to keep them safe through aggressive work-from-home protocols. We have provided them a degree of peace of mind, knowing their jobs and benefits are secure during the health crisis with a no-layoff pledge. Second, we have remained consistent in how we take care of our customers and distribution partners, doing what we can to support their needs. In fact, we are operating around the globe as a normal company during abnormal times.

Delta Airlines (Earnings Call – 4/22)

Starting this month, however, our cost structure has taken a big step down with the adjustments we have made. These actions include strategically parking more than 650 aircraft to get optimal maintenance savings and reducing our facilities expense by consolidating concourses and temporarily closing Sky Clubs. We’ve eliminated the majority of our discretionary spend for things like contractors and advertising as well. We also instituted a hiring freeze and reduced work hours across the business. And as Ed mentioned, 37,000 of our employees have volunteered to take an unpaid leave of absence. Together, these actions result in savings of approximately $550 million in the June quarter alone.

 

Quest Diagnostics (Earnings Call – 4/22)

This started with a 25% pay cut for me and reductions for salaried employees ranging from 20% for the most senior executives to 5% depending on level. Each of the members of our company’s Board of Directors will forgo 25% of their cash compensation. These pay reductions will be in place for 12 weeks. We’ve also suspended contributions to our 401(k) and deferred compensation plans through the remainder of the year. We’ve approved furloughs for more than 5,500 employees or approximately 12% of our workforce, whose work has diminished and who also have indicated an interest to us. We’ve reduced hours for nonexempt employees where possible and as necessary, and then finally, we reduced overtime, froze hiring, promotions and dismissed temporary and contract workers.

 

Coca-Cola (Earnings Call – 4/21)

As with many companies, job security is a concern for our people. And for us, it has been a key priority as we navigate through this period. Where necessary, we have furloughed some employees, and we have done so on full pay through June. The length, severity and overall impact of the crisis will ultimately determine how we will come out of this, and we will be very thoughtful on our approach.

 

Walmart (PR – 4/17)

BENTONVILLE, Ark.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Walmart is committed to helping our fellow Americans seeking work, while serving our customers during this unprecedented time. We recently committed to hiring more than 150,000 new associates by the end of May. Since then, we’ve had over 1 million applicants, hiring an average of 5,000 people per day. We’re pleased to share we reached our goal in less than a month – more than six weeks ahead of schedule. But we can do more. Today, we’re announcing a new commitment to hire an additional 50,000 associates.

Hiring will be across our stores, clubs, fulfillment and distribution centers, but this won’t be a one-size-fits-all approach. Hiring 50,000 new associates will give us the opportunity to provide additional staffing in key areas where it’s needed most. These hires will primarily be temporary associates and will support our current associates and customers in locations with specific needs. We are humbled and proud to be able to give an opportunity to so many workers during this critical time.

We continue to see strong demand in our stores, and at the same time, we want to give our current associates the flexibility to take time off and stay home if they feel more comfortable doing so. In stores and clubs, we’ll continue to hire key roles, such as cashiers, stockers and personal shoppers. In distribution centers and fulfillment centers, we’ll hire additional fillers and pickers. And, we’ll also continue adding roles such as more drivers to our fleet.

To hire these 150,000 new associates, we’ve worked with more than 70 companies that have furloughed workers. We’re seeing these associates come to us from restaurant and hospitality industries and other retailers. Of the associates hired, approximately 85 percent are being hired into temporary or part-time roles. While many of these associates want temporary employment that serves as a bridge during this time, we also expect others to convert to permanent roles.

 

BlackRock (Earnings Call – 4/16)

As BlackRock has demonstrated, environments like this create unique opportunities for growth as long as we have the discipline to realize them. While we will not reduce our workforce this year as a result of COVID-19, we have determined to freeze hiring in the current environment. We remain committed to act decisively as one BlackRock to focus on our existing resources where the impact will be greatest and to aggressively reallocate in challenging markets. We intend to continue playing offense, so we are able to deliver differentiated organic growth once we emerge from this crisis.

 

Transatlantic Petroleum Ltd (Market News – 4/13)

07:19 AM EDT, 04/13/2020 (MT Newswires) — Transatlantic Petroleum Ltd (TAT) said Thursday it expects labor expenses in Dallas to be reduced by about 50% after cost-cutting initiatives, including reductions in staff and compensation, as a response to the decline in crude oil prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delta Airlines (New York Post – 4/10)

Some 35,000 workers have signed up for unpaid leaves of absence that the Atlanta-based carrier started offering last month, CEO Ed Bastian said in a Thursday memo.

That amounts to more than a third of the roughly 91,000 full-time employees Delta had at the end of last year, according to its latest annual report.

Delta is seeking even more volunteers and bolstering benefits given to workers while they’re gone, Bastian said. He said last week that the company was offering longer-term absences of six, nine and 12 months.

Delta first offered unpaid leave in mid-March as it imposed a hiring freeze and slashed its flight capacity in response to the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic has led to global travel restrictions and depressed demand for flights.

Delta rivals American Airlines and United Airlines have also offered voluntary leave to their workers as the virus slammed their businesses. International carriers Cathay Pacific and Emirates have made similar moves.

Top executives at the three major US carriers have cut their own pay while seeking sacrifices from front-line workers. Bastian said in March that he would forego his salary for six months. United CEO Oscar Munoz is also giving up his base salary while American president Robert Isom is cutting his pay by 55 percent.

 

Boeing (Market News – 4/10)

CHICAGO — U.S. airplane giant Boeing Company is mulling a plan to cut about 10 percent of its workforce amid the fallout caused by COVID-19, U.S. media reported Thursday.

The plan, which could include buyouts, early retirements and involuntary layoffs, are expected to mostly target the company’s commercial arm, since turmoil in the global airline industry has put the unit under immense strain, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter.

 

Yelp (SF Chronicle – 4/10)

The coronavirus is bruising San Francisco’s tech industry.

Yelp is laying off 1,000 workers and furloughing 1,100 more, roughly a third of its staff, the company said Thursday. Eventbrite laid off 450 employees, or nearly half of its workforce, on Wednesday.

Airbnb, which planned to go public this year, raised $1 billion this week as bookings have plunged worldwide. The company enacted a hiring freeze for most jobs and paused marketing in an effort to save $800 million this year, tech news website the Information   reported last month.

 

Allegion (PR – 4/9)

Allegion recently implemented several actions to address the COVID-19 impact to its business, including reductions to discretionary spending, elimination of non-essential investments, a hiring freeze and re-prioritization of all capital expenditures. These actions will help mitigate the financial implications associated with COVID-19.

 

Bentley Motors (PR – 4/9)

Bentley Motors, a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG (Xetra: VW), has laid off 200 agency workers because of the coronavirus crisis.

The automaker has closed its Crewe, UK, factory for a month on March 20 and has informed 200 Adecco production temporary workers that their assignments with Bentley will come to an end with immediate effect.

 

RBS (Market News – 4/8)

05:56 AM EDT, 04/08/2020 (MT Newswires) — Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has trimmed its NatWest Markets investment banking division amid the COVID-19 crisis, with 130 employees getting layoff notices via video call, the Financial Times reported.

Despite protests from trade unions, the British lender went forward with plans for reducing the size of its investment banking unit and transfering some of the remaining jobs in areas such as risk management to other countries. By contrast, many of RBS’ domestic and international peers suspended job cuts as employees hunker down in their homes amid the pandemic, according to the report.

 

Tesla (PR – 4/8)

Tesla, an electric car company, is telling staff to brace for pay cuts and furloughs as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupts operations and cripples demand, CNN reported on Wednesday.

 

RBC (Shareholders Meeting – 4/8)

RBC provides all of us with a sense of belonging, and that shouldn’t change even if the way we work has. Our bank also understands these are anxious times for everybody, including our own employees. That’s why our leadership team committed to no layoffs this year as a result of COVID-19. 

Ulta Beauty Inc (Market News – 4/8)

05:25 PM EDT, 04/08/2020 (MT Newswires) — Ulta Beauty (ULTA) said on Wednesday it will temporarily furlough many of its store and salon associates from April 19 due to COVID-19 pandemic and its CEO Mary Dillion has chosen to indefinitely forgo her base salary.

Toast (TechCrunch – 4/7)

Last valued at $5 billion, restaurant management platform Toast has joined the sweep of startups laying off employees due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Toast reduced the size of its staff by 50% through layoffs and furloughs, according to a blog post from Toast’s CEO, Chris Comparato. It also reduced executive pay across the board, froze hiring, halted bonuses and pulled back offers.

 

Away (TechCrunch – 4/7)

With travel down nearly 100 percent as the coronavirus makes its way across the U.S. and world, the company has seen sales of its product fall off a cliff, say company founders Steph Korey and Jen Rubio in a new Medium post. Specifically, they disclosed today, sales of their luggage, bags, and interior organizers have fallen by more than 90 percent over the past few weeks.

The company, which began as a direct-to-consumer brand, first took steps to reduce its burn rate by shuttering its now ten retail stores, while paying its retail teams “during what we hoped would be short-term closures.”

Unsurprisingly, given that human capital is typically a company’s biggest cost center, that strategy go far enough, so the company is having to furlough “about half” of its team and it’s laying off another 10%, it says.

 

Nissan (Market News – 4/7)

TOKYO – Nissan Motor Co. is looking to cut over 10,000 jobs temporarily in the United States and Europe, as local production remains suspended amid the coronavirus outbreak, sources close to the matter said Tuesday.

Nissan is considering reducing its workforce in the U.S. market in addition to plans already outlined to temporarily lay off most of the 6,000 workers at its plant in Sunderland in Britain and around 3,000 in Spain.

 

Cochlear Ltd (IR Circulars – 4/6)

Cochlear has already taken action to manage costs, reducing all non-essential spending and capital expenditure for the balance of the financial year. The business has also implemented a hiring freeze. Mr Holliday-Smith said, “Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have taken steps to ensure the health and safety of our employees, continued to support our clinics, professional partners and recipients while ensuring the financial stability of the Company

 

Capri Holdings (Market News – 4/6)

(+) Capri Holdings (CPRI) rose more than 26% on Monday after the luxury handbag and clothing company said it was furloughing its North American retail staff, effective Saturday, April 11, and will also reduce its corporate workforce in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The company will continue to pay for health care benefits for the about 7,000 store employees and said it hopes to rehire as many of its retail employees “as possible” during the second half of the company’s current FY21 but also warned it expects it will need a smaller workforce once stores reopen.

 

Chubb Limited (Market News – 4/6)

04:01 AM EDT, 04/06/2020 (MT Newswires) — Chubb (CB) said late Sunday it will not layoff employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The insurance company also said it will commit $10 million to support people and programs that provide emergency frontline services to the most financially vulnerable communities

Marsh & McLennan (Washington Post – 4/5)

On the evening of March 19, as statewide stay-at-home orders were just beginning, reports of job layoffs were surging and the number of U.S. coronavirus cases topped 14,000, Marsh & McLennan chief executive Dan Glaser made a pledge to employees.

 

Boston Scientific (Boston Globe – 4/3)

Boston Scientific said Thursday that it’s cutting wages for many of its roughly 36,000 global employees by 20 percent for the next 90 days because the postponement of elective surgeries during the coronavirus pandemic has decreased revenue.

The Marlborough-based medical device maker also plans to make deeper cuts to the base salaries of its chief executive, Mike Mahoney, and those of its board of directors and executive committee. Boston Scientific predicted that the impact of COVID-19 will be worse in the second quarter.

Starting in a couple of weeks, Boston Scientific plans to put most of its full-time US workers who aren’t ­involved in sales or manufacturing on a four-day work week for 90 days, with a corresponding reduction in base salary. Hours for part-time employees will be maintained at a level to preserve benefits.

 

Ross Stores Inc (8k – 4/2)

The Company issued a press release on April 2, 2020, providing an update related to actions it is taking in response to the store closures and other business disruptions resulting from regional and national efforts to slow the COVID-19 pandemic. Actions include reducing payroll expenses through the furloughing of associates beginning April 5, 2020, and through temporary salary reductions for other personnel, such actions expected to continue until operations can resume.

 

TransDigm (8k – 4/2)

In the near term, the outbreak and worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic will adversely impact TransDigm Group’s commercial aftermarket sales. TransDigm Group believes that the COVID-19 pandemic will also adversely impact its commercial original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) sales over the long term. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the estimated decrease in shipping levels, TransDigm Group will reduce its workforce by up to 15%, as well as implement temporary furloughs in response to business unit-specific situations. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is fluid and continues to evolve, and therefore, TransDigm Group cannot currently predict the extent to which its business, results of operations, financial condition or liquidity will ultimately be impacted.

 

Macy’s (Definitive Proxy – 4/1)

As previously announced, in response to the widespread coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, we have temporarily closed all of our stores, including all Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Bluemercury, Macy’s Backstage, Bloomingdales the Outlet and Market by Macy’s stores, and have taken other actions to mitigate the financial impact of the pandemic on our operations, including but not limited to suspending our quarterly dividend, deferring capital spending and drawing down on our credit facility. On March 30, 2020, we announced that, beginning April 1, 2020, we will be putting the majority of our workforce on furlough and all employees at the director-level and above who are not furloughed, including our NEOs, will have a pay reduction and our Chief Executive Officer and the Board of Directors will receive no cash compensation.

 

Sysco (Houston Chronicle – 3/31)

“We have seen swift and dramatic declines in the volumes of our outbound customer demand,” Hourican said. Sysco is now reducing hours for some of its employees, cutting capital investments to noncritical projects and pivoting its business to new markets, including retail grocery. The company said it is not seeking a government bailout. The layoffs in response to the coronavirus fallout are the latest round to hit Sysco employees in recent years. The company a few years ago outsourced information technology work to India, and last year laid off nearly 300 finance and accounting staff at its shared services center in Cypress. In addition, Sysco consolidated its French and hospitality subsidiaries and closed some facilities in Canada and Europe, laying off an undisclosed number of workers. Earlier this year, Sysco outsourced all of its U.S. customer service functions, laying off at least 30 employees in the Houston area and others nationally.

 

Palo Alto Networks (M&A Call – 3/31)

In this unique time, we also have shown a commitment to helping our employees. Yesterday, we committed to a no-layoff policy associated with the uncertainty caused by COVID-19. We have slowed down hiring to ensure that we manage the pace of our hires in line with the expectations of the economy. We also established a fund to assist our employees that may be in need, our hourly workers who may not be working during this period and also the communities we’re in. The fund will be supported by donations from management, our Board of Directors, our employees and me.

 

BMO (Annual Shareholder Meeting – 3/31)

Answer – J. Robert Prichard;Chair: Thank you very much Darryl. We have the next question comes from [Ray Acken] and he asks what layoffs are being planned by BMO in anticipation of the COVID-19 recession? Could you take that one, Darryl?

Answer – William Darryl White: I’m happy to Chairman. The short answer is none. We have not had any employees laid off as a consequence of COVID-19, and we have no intention to. I should also say that any employees who have needed to be home as a consequence of COVID-19 or needed to be off work as a consequence of COVID-19 are continuing to receive full pay from BMO through this crisis, and these are important commitments that we have to our employees.

 

Lockheed Martin Group (PR – 3/27)

These are our initial financial steps to help during this time of national need. In addition:

• We will offer Lockheed Martin‘s engineering and technical capabilities to help solve the most pressing challenges faced by federal, state, and local officials.
• We will donate the use of our corporate aircraft and vehicle fleet for COVID-19 relief logistical support and medical supply delivery.
• We will donate the use of our facilities for crisis-related activities including critical medical supply storage, distribution, and COVID-19 testing, where needed and practical.
• Finally, during this time of economic uncertainty, we will continue our planned recruiting and hiring. Given the requirement for social distancing, Lockheed Martin will deploy virtual technology and other techniques to sustain our hiring activity during this crisis period.

Lockheed Martin understands that the shared effort to combat COVID-19 and recover from its effects will be a long-term one. We will continue to engage national, state, and local leaders to undertake additional measures as needed.

 

Walmart (Bloomberg News – 3/27)

Walmart Inc. has taken on 25,000 new employees and given offers to thousands more in the first week of a hiring push, as the biggest private employer in the US scrambles to keep its shelves stocked and checkouts staffed during the coronavirus pandemic. The retailer has compressed a hiring process that can often take two weeks into as little as three hours by eliminating formal interviews and written job offers, giving store managers authority to make verbal offers right away, according to Dan Bartlett, executive vice president of corporate affairs. The applicants include high school and college students along with those let go from jobs at restaurants and hotels. Walmart last week pledged to hire 150,000 hourly workers, increasing its US work force by 10 percent amid a rapid economic shift due to the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Citigroup (Seeking Alpha – 3/27)

Add Citigroup (NYSE:C) to the list of banks that have paused layoffs, as the coronavirus pandemic has led to a record level of unemployment claims and unprecedented economic uncertainty.

Citigroup Chief Executive Michael Corbat has also ordered a suspension of any planned layoffs, a source told Reuters. Further details were not immediately available.

 

Lloyds Banking Group (Market News – 3/24)

02:43 PM EDT, 03/24/2020 (MT Newswires) —Lloyds Banking Group (LYG) has halted plans to cut around 780 jobs and suspended layoffs talks amid COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing employee union Accord.

Last month, the bank said it plans to cut jobs to reduce its branch network to lower its costs.

 

GE (PR – 3/23)

GE Aviation is announcing plans that impact its U.S. population, while the business works with the appropriate parties to properly address its global workforce:

• GE Aviation is planning to reduce approximately 10% of its total U.S. workforce.
• There will be a temporary lack of work impacting approximately 50% of its U.S. maintenance, repair and overhaul employees for 90 days.
• These actions build on those the business already has taken, including a hiring freeze, the cancellation of the salaried merit increase, a dramatic reduction of all non-essential spending, and a significant decrease in its contingent workforce.
• Starting April 1, David Joyce, vice chairman of GE and president and CEO of GE Aviation, will forgo half of his salary.

 

Dollar General (PR – 3/20)

Hiring Opportunities

For any individual whose job has been temporarily impacted by the effect of COVID-19, we currently have a number of full and part time positions available across our stores, distribution centers and private fleet network. We welcome anyone interested in furthering our mission of Serving Others to find available opportunities and apply online by clicking here.

JPMorgan (PR – 3/20)

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) has said that it will temporarily close about 20 percent of its branches.

The bank said that the closures have been prompted by COVID-19.

The firm also said that it would reduce staff in order to cope with the situation.

 

Credit Suisse (PR – 3/18)

Swiss bank, Credit Suisse (NYSE CS) is laying off markets professionals following a change at the top of the company.

The firm has started identifying redundancies in global markets last week and the layoffs are likely to affect around 30 people. The bank has not made an official comment. The layoffs are not understood to be coronavirus-related.

The cuts come despite a strong year for Credit Suisse’s global markets business in 2019.

 

Marriott (PR – 3/18)

The company is taking numerous proactive steps to mitigate the negative financial and operational impacts of COVID-19.  Business contingency plans have been implemented and will continue to be adjusted in response to the global situation. At the property level, contingency plans include measures such as closing food and beverage outlets, reducing staff and closing floors or even entire hotels.  The company has also temporarily deferred most brand standards to help owners and franchisees, including delaying renovations due in 2020 by one year, deferring required furniture, fixtures and equipment funding and suspending brand standard audits.

At the corporate level, these steps include making significant cuts in senior executive salaries, requiring temporary leaves in North America, shortening work weeks around the world and cancelling non-essential travel and spending.  Marriott estimates these cost cutting measures will reduce 2020 corporate general and administrative costs by at least $140 million.  As additional measures continue to be implemented, this number is expected to grow.  The company has also taken steps to dramatically reduce costs related to programs and services that hotels reimburse it for, such as marketing costs, to be more in-line with the expected decline in funding given likely lower systemwide revenues. The company has also reviewed its investment spending plans and currently expects to eliminate or defer at least one-third of its prior forecast of $700 to $800 million of spend in 2020, generally proceeding with funding only when the company was previously obligated.

 

United Airlines (PR – 3/17)

United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL) CEO, Oscar Munoz and president J. Scott Kirby have issued a message to United’s nearly 100,000 employees regarding the impact of the coronavirus on the company’s business and the steps the airline is taking to manage it, the company said.

The statement addressed the impact of the virus on United’s business has become worse with the new travel restrictions for the UK and Ireland. Munoz and Kirby said they feel an obligation to run the company in a way that protects the employees and to be open about the decisions facing the airlines.

The United leaders acknowledged March as its busiest month of the year, but is projecting that revenue in March 2020 will be USD 1.5 billion lower than last March.

United has taken steps to manage the crisis by reducing schedules, imposing a hiring freeze, introducing a voluntary leave program, reducing discretionary spending, cutting the CEO base by 100% and deferring a salary increase. Competitors have started to follow suit.

 

Amazon (Market News – 3/17)

Amazon plans to hire an extra 100,000 workers in the US and raise pay rates to deal with a surge in demand as consumers avoid shops and stock up online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The technology firm said it needs an unprecedented amount of labour for this time of the year and is willing to pay more to attract enough staff.

 

Shake Shack (PR – 3/17)

Pandemics or disease outbreaks such as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19 virus) have and may continue to impact customer traffic at our restaurants, may make it more difficult to staff our restaurants and, in more severe cases, may cause a temporary inability to obtain supplies, increase commodity costs or cause closures of our affected restaurants, sometimes for prolonged periods of time. We have temporarily shifted to a “to-go” only operating model in our domestic company-operated Shacks, suspending sit-down dining. We have also implemented closures, modified hours or reductions in on-site staff, resulting in cancelled shifts for some of our employees. COVID-19 may also materially adversely affect our ability to implement our growth plans, including delays in construction of new restaurants or adversely impact our overall ability to successfully execute our plans to enter into new markets. These changes and any additional changes may materially adversely affect our business or results of operations, and may impact our liquidity or financial condition, particularly if these changes are in place for a significant amount of time.

Abraxas Petroleum (Market News – 3/17)

06:50 AM EDT, 03/17/2020 (MT Newswires) — Abraxas Petroleum (AXAS) said Monday that it had implemented cost-saving measures, including salary reduction, board size reduction, and selective layoffs as a response to current market conditions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company said these steps will reduce administrative expenses by about 40%. Capital expenditures will be temporarily limited to minor projects, and drilling and well completion will also be suspended.

 

Lift & Co (PR – 3/17)

Lift & Co. Corp. has temporarily laid off members of its work force and paused operations of non-profitable business segments due to extenuating circumstances outside of the company’s control.

Specifically, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects the pandemic is having on event businesses around the world, the Company has made difficult and strategic decisions intended to preserve cash and long-term shareholder value. The Company remains committed to continuing its profitable Lift & Co. Expo and CannSell lines of business which will be operationally unaffected by these changes.

 

Tix Corporation (PR – 3/17)

Our Tix4Tonight business is located in Las Vegas where we sell shows, attractions, tours and dining from our nine ticket booths that are strategically located on the Strip. Due to efforts to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, virtually all Las Vegas entertainment, restaurants, bars, and  major hotel properties such as Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts International have closed.  With the closure of entertainment on the Las Vegas Strip, and therefore the cessation of revenue for our business, we effected a layoff of the majority of our employees, closed our ticket booths, and continue to significantly reduce our operating costs. We will continually monitor the Las Vegas marketplace to determine when and if we will be able to commence operations again.  We intend to seek available disaster assistance, as well as forms of financing to help with liquidity during this disruption to our business.  We will be assisting our employees to obtain any federal and state assistance that may be available to them. We are grateful to our staff for their years and decades of dedication and superb talent they have given the company.  We wish them well during this very difficult period.

 

Brussels Airlines (Market News – 3/17)

Brussels Airlines has just over 4,000 employees and operates 48 aircraft to 115 destinations — mainly in Europe and Africa — and in 2018 had revenue of 1.5 billion euros.

Official travel bans and passenger uncertainty triggered by the coronavirus outbreak have threatened the survival of many carriers world wide, and thousands of staff have been laid off.

Scandic Hotels  (PR – 3/16)

Intensified measures of authorities to stop the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) have led to continued worsening of the business situation for Scandic Hotels Group AB. Today, Scandic will give notice of termination of employment to approximately 2,000 team members in Sweden, which corresponds to about half of the company’s permanent employees in the country. Significant cutbacks will also be necessary in Scandic’s other markets.

 

Azul SA (PR – 3/16)

12:02 PM EDT, 03/16/2020 (MT Newswires) — Azul (AZUL), a Brazilian carrier, said Monday it decided to cut capacity by 20%-25% in March and by 35% to 50% in April and beyond in response to the economic impact caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The company said its moves are meant to preserve its cash position as the economy struggles.

Azul also decided to cut the executives’ salary by 25%, freeze hiring, ground aircraft, and suspend all new aircraft deliveries as part of its cost-cutting measures.

 

Southwest Airlines (News – 3/16)

“The company has experienced more dramatic declines in passenger bookings in March and second quarter 2020, as well as an unprecedented increase in close-in trip cancellations. The company has recently experienced several days of net negative bookings, primarily in March and April 2020, where trip cancellations outpaced new passenger bookings. The company’s month-to-date load factor through March 15, 2020, was approximately 67 percent, with recent days trending toward 50 percent. As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic grows, and based on current booking and cancellation trends, we expect revenue trends for the remainder of March and second quarter 2020 to deteriorate further.”

As far as actions, Southwest is reducing capacity by 20% after April 14 and instituting a hiring freeze. Southwest has also drawn down the full $1.0B under its $1.0B revolving credit facility expiring in August 2022.

 

Scandinavian Airlines (PR – 3/16)

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has announced that due to non-existent demand for air travel, it has put most of its operations on hold, the company said.

The measures come amid the grounding of thousands of planes worldwide as countries step up their measures to deal with the outbreak.

SAS said it would suspend operations and would not recommence services until necessary prerequisites for commercial air traffic returns.

The airline said to support customers, it will do its best to uphold a certain level of operation to enable travellers to return from their destinations.

The firm will temporarily lay off around 90 per cent of its staff and reduce services, with only domestic operations and a few European flights continuing.

British Airways (PR – 3/16)

British Airways in survival fight as rivals plead for government bailouts; British Airways is in talks with unions about job cuts as Norwegian faces an anxious wait for a bailout and Lufthansa requests state help

British Airways warned the coronavirus pandemic has caused a crisis ‘of global proportions like no other we have known’ as governments prepared to start bailing out cash-strapped airlines

 

MGM Resorts (PR – 3/16)

Both MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts announced plans to close in Las Vegas beginning Tuesday to stem the huge crowds that routinely flood the gambling mecca.

“It is now apparent that this is a public health crisis that requires major collective action if we are to slow its progression,” MGM CEO and chairman Jim Murren said in a statement.

MGM already started making “significant furloughs and layoffs,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, noting at least 150 food and beverage outlets have been closed at its properties.

It includes jobs gone from its household-name venues like The Mirage, the Bellagio and New York-New York, sources told the Review-Journal.

 

Samsung (Market News – 3/13)

SEOUL, March 13 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s major conglomerates pushed back their hiring schedules due to the novel coronavirus, industry officials said Friday, amid concerns that they may scale down their employment plans in the first half of the year.

Samsung Group, South Korea’s largest conglomerate, said it is very likely to postpone its first-half hiring event that usually takes place in March. Industry officials said they expect Samsung’s recruitment process to be delayed a month.

 

Emerson Electric (JPMorgan Industrials Conference – 3/12)

Answer – Charles Stephen Tusa: We’re at a point where other corporates are going to kind of follow your lead and start to cut heads. So we see that in the jobs, the jobs numbers and…

Answer – David N. Farr: I think they’re going to be very, very cautious right now because of the paranoia around the coronavirus. So I think they’re going to be very nervous about cutting heads. I think they’re going to be very careful about it.

Answer – Charles Stephen Tusa: So we won’t know really until kind of probably first quarter earnings reports you know…

Answer – David N. Farr: People might say, okay, it is not…

Answer – Charles Stephen Tusa: I’ve seen enough now. I know whether I need to cut or not.

Answer – David N. Farr: But now from my standpoint, since we’ve already started restructuring, I have the flexibility to do it because I have already started. And — but the issue is, I think they’re probably adjusting them off at this point in time and say, “hey, do I do this?” And I think that you’ll start seeing it in that April, May, June time period. I personally think that this thing that when the heat gets here, this thing will slow down, people get back out. I mean people get hard at being in a building all day long, I mean, by themselves. And from that perspective, I think people will start traveling again sometimes in the summer.

 

Norwegian (IR Circulars – 3/12)

During a pandemic it is Norwegian’s policy to prioritize and safeguard the health and well-being of employees while ensuring Norwegian’s ability to maintain essential operations and continue providing services to our customers.

Due to the extraordinary market situation as a result of the coronavirus, and thus a dramatic drop in customers and subsequent production decline, we must look at all possible measures to reduce costs. This unfortunately also includes temporary layoffs of up to 50 percent of our employees and the number may increase. All departments will be affected by the temporary layoffs.

We have initiated, in consultation with the unions, a discussion and mapping process and will then return with leave notices to affected departments, stations and employees.

 

Finnair (Market News – 2/28)

Finland’s national airline also said on Friday was scrapping its capacity growth target for this year, and would look into cutting costs by 40-50 million euros ($44-54 million), with measures under consideration including temporary layoffs.

Its shares dropped nearly 6% after the Helsinki market open.

“Finnair currently estimates that the coronavirus situation will decrease demand, resulting in a negative impact on revenue for Q2 2020,” the company said in a statement, adding this would result in a “significantly lower” operating profit for the year.

 

Solvay SA (Market News – 2/28)

Belgian chemicals giant Solvay, facing difficulties linked to the coronavirus and the Boeing 737 MAX scandal, on Wednesday announced plans to cut 350 jobs around the world by the end of 2021.

 

HSBC (Boston Globe – 2/19)

HONG KONG — HSBC plans to cut 35,000 jobs over the next three years as the global bank scales back its Western operations to focus on faster-growing Asian markets, particularly China.

Yet the announcement from the London bank on Tuesday that it aims to cut $4.5 billion in costs comes as it faces headwinds like the coronavirus outbreak in China and months of political strife in Hong Kong, one of its most important markets.

The coronavirus is causing economic disruptions in Hong Kong and mainland China that could have a negative impact on performance this year, the bank warned. It lowered expectations for growth across Asia for this year but added that it expected to see some improvement once the virus was contained. Nearly half of the bank’s revenue comes from Asia.