Posted on 11/13/2004 9:30:24 AM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Office Depot Inc. announced plans Friday to cut roughly another 800 jobs, including positions in retail stores, its corporate headquarters and its European sales force, officials said. The announcement comes two weeks after officials announced plans to cut 900 jobs as it consolidates operations at eight call centers and offices in six states. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Office Depot — the nation's second-largest office supply retailer — said it was reducing its staff at retail stores in North America by 2 percent. Altogether, the cuts were estimated to generate $14.2 million in annual savings.
Chairman and chief executive Neil Austrian said the company was concentrating on strategic programs and "a focus on fewer programs requires fewer people." Office Depot's third-quarter earnings fell nearly 2 percent as back-to-school and European sales were weaker than expected.
The cuts include:
_ 550 full time retail store employees in North America;
_ 97 employees at its corporate headquarters in Delray Beach;
_ 24 workers at a call center in Torrance, Calif.;
_ 93 financial workers in Wichita, Kan. These jobs will be outsourced to a domestic company and the employees will be offered positions at the outsourcing company;
_ 10 employees at its 4sure.com, Inc., subsidiary in Trumbull, Conn.
_ 45 employees of its contract sales force in Europe.
In trading Friday, Office Depot shares closed up 16 cents, or 1 percent, at $17.05 on the New York Stock Exchange — near the middle of their 52-week trading range of $13.87 to $19.50.
HERE: Office Depot cuts 900 jobs
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/29/news/fortune500/office_depot.reut/
Maybe some of the deadbeats at my local OD will get the boot. Unhelpful...in a big way. Next stop? Get some helpful people at HOME Depot...I go out of my way, and go to Lowe's in my area...even though Home Depot is closer.
Don't worry if it's out there, Willie has it bookmarked.
It's Bush's fault!
Man's got a point.
Within 5 miles of my office there is one of each type of the three office supply stores, plus a couple of other places where large quantities of office supplies can be found (a Business Costco and an independent office supply store). I doubt that all can last. I expect that this is happening in other places as well and Office Depot is just doing what it does to survive the next phase.
Those that are left will be working twice as hard for the same damn money. That's happening everywhere.
Which chain do you think will survive?
The Invisible Hand never sleeps.
well there is a beginning of a very strong competition of officemax/office depot/staples for regions in us where they are lacking in share. Staples which has a much stronger franchise then the other two is doing well. OfficeMax can compete due to virtical integration by a merger with Boise Cascade but office depot is less competitive then the other two. I figure it began to loose ground. *btw this was in the papers about their increasing competition for each others markets about 6 months ago
While I started out favoring Office Depot, Office Max has built up my cutomer good will just because it has been a little more agressive in its pricing and advertising things that I need to buy. Something about Staples just doesn't seem right and I think that Office Depot will ultimatly do better than Stapples.
Yes, that IS happening and very little is being published about it. It is happening in my job AND my wife's job. Little by little, the supervisors put more and more on us and yet the pay does not increase. I believe a LOT of people are severely frustrated by that specific problem at work (in addition to all of the others).
The answer is not unions stating exactly what someone can and can not do at work. A big part of the problem is excessive taxation and regulation driving up overhead costs causing supervision to look for ways to cut cost -- ergo, squeeze more labor out of the present employees for the same money. I simply don't believe it is always the employer trying to explicity take advantage of the employee, but rather other mitigating factors leading to the necessity for cutting cost.
yep if you notice the employer has to pay $5 an hour into the tax system for every $10 an hour he pays his employs (his part of social security burden) but it gets higher by gov'ts spending that money on other stuff and creating more barriers for business in order to leverage their revenue collections. For example they might need the busiensses to certify that their lumber comes from US/Can/Mex and not from non-Nafta parts and that sucks a continuous stream of money into the certifiers pockets. Then there are ordinance surcharges for the services provided ergo extra fees for using the road besides the usual real estate taxes which should pay for it. Costs for truckers going up translates into shipping costs going up which make harder to make a profit margin etcetc...
Yes, I know. The whole system is screwed up. Liberal Democrats are sociopaths. Republicans, it seems, are dropping off to the fanatical side. Government is ruining business and still expecting us to have an economy. And, the Moderator pulled my legitimate story about meeting the female Muslim clerk this evening. To whom it may concern, I asked her if she was a Muslim (head scarf and all) to which she responded "yes." I simply have no more apologies to anyone about anything.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.