Job Cuts | featured news

A week after The Baltimore Sun slashed 60 newsroom jobs, including 18 top editing positions, some 50 newsroom staffers still at the paper have launched a one-day byline strike, according to the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild.

New US claims for state unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, the fourth decline in five weeks, providing further evidence that the pace of layoffs has slowed after months of steep job cuts.

The pace of private-sector U.S. job losses slowed dramatically last month, while future planned layoffs also declined, and the hard-hit housing sector showed signs of improvement last week.

Microsoft notified Tuesday more employees who will lose their jobs as part of the software giant's planned elimination of around 5,000 positions.

General Motors Corp. said it will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year, phase out its storied Pontiac brand and ask the government to take more than half its stock in exchange for half of GM's government debt as part of a major restructuring that would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the company.

Latin American workers who have lost their jobs are being offered money to return to their home countries.

General Motors Corp is cutting about 1,600 salaried jobs in the United States this week as it rushes to meet a June 1 deadline to restructure under U.S.

To get nervous consumers to buy, companies are promising refunds, and sometimes more, in the event of a job loss.

Toshiba expects a wider full-year net loss, further job cuts and a reduction in capital spending as the company tries to cope with weak demand for semiconductors and other consumer electronics.

UBS AG says it expects a first quarter loss of nearly 2 billion Swiss francs ($1.75 billion) and that will cut 8,700 jobs by the end of next year.