Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of construction equipment, said it would cut 20,000 jobs  as it reported an annual fall of more than 32% in Q4 profits – a month after slashing executive salaries and jobs at large plants. Sprint Nextel, the US mobile-phone operator, said it will cut 8,000 jobs, or 14% of its workforce,  while DIY retailer Home Depot is cutting 7,000 jobs and freezing salaries. Pfizer said 19,500 jobs would go after its takeover of US rival Wyeth, while carmaker GM announced 2,000 job losses at two plants in Michigan and chipmaker Texas Instruments said it would cut 3,400 positions. IBM meanwhile cut 2,800 jobs last week. In Europe, ING said it would axe  7,000 of its 130,000 global staff and Philips 6,000 jobs while Corus, Britain’s largest steelmaker, announced cuts of 3,500 from its global workforce of 41,000,  with more than 2,000 jobs to go in the UK where it employs 20,000.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 5:50 and is filed under Capital markets, People. Tagged with Caterpillar, corus, home depot, ing, pfizer, philips, sprint nextel, Texas Instruments, Wyeth. Edit this entry.