(Salem, OR) Neilsen layoffs are omen for area firms (70% cut in staff)

[UpInArms]

http://159.54.226.83/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051001/NEWS/510010332/1001/NEWS

Major job cuts at a Salem company that experts say did almost everything right have some businesses more worried than before about the future of local manufacturers.

Neilsen Manufacturing Inc. said Monday that it will slash its work force from 175 to 50 because of competition from Southeast Asia.

The 48-year-old company is a model of lean manufacturing, a group of practices that maximize the use of factory space, time and employees. Competitors say Neilsen is the largest or second-largest business of its kind in Oregon. A precision sheet-metal shop that makes computer bodies and other products for high-tech corporations, it was named Manufacturer of the Year in June by Salem's Strategic Economic Development Corp.

Three months later, Neilsen's layoff announcement was a blow to an already-slow Salem job market and an example of how quickly conditions for U.S. manufacturers are changing.

"Neilsen has been a superbly managed company, very financially sound," said Brett Dennis, the president of Zephyr Engineering. "When a company like Neilsen does what they did, it's a sign that other companies probably will do that, too."

<snip>

But even companies that are smaller but similar to Neilsen say they've seen dramatic highs and lows since 2001.

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[madrchsod]

1. it doesn`t matter anymore how well a company is run

if a supplier from another cheap labor country wants to copy a product and drive them out of busniness there is nothing an american company can do about it. thanks to our gutless democrats and republicans the selling out of the american worker and their workplace goes unabaited. the great american sell off never stops....

[SpiralHawk]

2. BushCo: "Outsourcing is Good for America"

More Fat Cat Repulican Propaganda -- the Fat Cats have bought that party's soul, lock, stock and barrel.

[day2]

5. Democrat leaders just as bad

Major democrats have pushed outsourcing/big business breaks just as much as republicans. Clinton was a leader in getting MFN status for china and really starting the exporting of jobs to china under his command. Bush has taken up where clinton left off. Look at the charts. The trade defecit with china really took off under clinton and has spiked under bush
Both parties are rotten to the core and are alike and do not look out for the middle class.

[Toots]

3. But their tax break was to get them to hire people not fire them.

Tax cuts and outsourcing are good things says the GOP..and local companies fall by the hundreds.

[WhiteTara]

4. well I feel better about slashing my payroll 100%

last year. If the best run manufacturing company in the country can't make it, then we are in such deep sh*t that we better start planting food in any place we can. This is terrible news.
I wish we had a icon for doing a Richard Clark...you know jumping up and down with my hair on fire.

[xchrom]

6. see how good nafta, cafta, mfn and all the rest of

that horseshit is for us?