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<p>Illinois employers warned they would lay off more than 1,000 workers in the coming months, according to notices filed with Illinois regulators in February.</p> <p>Accretive Health warned it would lay off 148 workers. The company said in January the layoffs are part of a broader restructuring in which positions will be moved from Chicago to other cities to be closer to clients. Accretive said then the layoffs could affect as many as 170 workers. The company employs about 600 people in the region.</p>

(Reuters) - Staples Inc (SPLS), the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, forecast a fall in current-quarter sales as it loses customers to mass market chains and e-retailers, and the company said it would close up to 225 stores in North America by 2015. Staples' shares fell 9 percent before the bell, after the company also posted lower-than-expected fourth-quarter results and forecast current-quarter profit below analysts' estimates. The company operates 1,515 stores in the United States and 331 stores in Canada.

just finished 6 months at a manufacturer, they are downsizing seasonally, I was an inspector on the production line, me and another inspector got it, more of the production crews are going to get laid off this week.

It was less than a month ago when Barclays announced it would fire 12,000 workers after posting abysmal earnings with Q4 banking income crashing 37% and overall income sliding 9%. So, one would think, its employees would be punished with lower pay - those that are lucky enough to keep their jobs of course. One would be wrong. Reuters just reported that 481 of Barclays employees were paid 1 million pounds ($1.7 million) or more last year, 53 more than in the year before, and most of them were based in the United States.The headscratcher continues: Barclays said 57...

There will soon be about 1,100 fewer places to buy batteries. RadioShack said Tuesday that it plans to close up to 1,100 stores, or about a fifth of its U.S. locations. The news came as the retailer reported a wider quarterly loss after a disappointing holiday season. Its stock tumbled 16 percent in afternoon trading. CEO Joseph Magnacca said the closings would leave the company with more than 4,000 U.S. stores. That's still far more than Best Buy, which has roughly 1,400 U.S. locations, and makes RadioShack stores nearly as common as Wal-Mart. RadioShack didn't immediately identify which stores will...

Wells Fargo cuts 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages declines.Wells Fargo & Co. said Wednesday that it is cutting 700 employees, including 203 in the Twin Cities, as demand for mortgages continues to shrink. The San Francisco-based bank said it notified affected employees Wednesday, and that almost all of them work at the Wells Fargo Home Mortgage campus in south Minneapolis. Some work elsewhere in the Twin Cities. The cuts follow scattered layoffs in the Twin Cities in January in which Wells Fargo laid off fewer than 30 mortgage-related workers. “We currently expect mortgage...

LYNN HAVEN, Fla. General Dynamics has sent letters to 730 of its employees at the ObamaCare call facility that they are being laid off. That's about half of the workforce at the facility in the old SalleMae facility at the Lynn Haven Industrial park. U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, II of Panama City says the loss of 730 Bay County jobs is a stark reminder of America’s transformation into a part-time, short-term society. The Congressman told NewsChannel 7, " I am saddened that these hardworking men and women are paying the price for the Obama administration’s unyielding pursuit of a job-crushing,...

Best Buy has a major cost-cutting operation in the works, and the code word is “pink slip.” The nation’s biggest electronics chain — which saw sales fall 2.6 percent during the Christmas selling season because of a price war with Amazon — has begun laying off thousands of midlevel managers nationwide as it girds for even more competition, The Post has learned. After slashing hundreds of jobs at Best Buy’s Minneapolis HQ last year and closing unprofitable stores, CEO Hubert Joly is now swinging the ax across the retailer’s 1,056 US big-box stores and regional offices, according to insiders briefed...

Cox Communications said Wednesday it is closing a call center in San Diego, eliminating 500 jobs. The move comes as part of a company-wide consolidation of call center operations for Atlanta-based Cox Communications, which is trimming its current 19 call centers nationwide into seven large sites. Company spokesman Dennis Morgigno said the expanded call centers will be located in Las Vegas; Phoenix; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; Wichita, Kan.; Hampton Roads, Va.; and Baton Rouge. California wasn’t chosen as a call center site because the company lacked real estate to expand here, Morgigno said. It had space available in the other...

IBM’s next round of layoffs are expected to begin on Wednesday, Feb. 26, according to a union for IBM employees. The internal code name for this round of cuts is “Project Apollo,” sources told the union, Alliance@IBM on an online forum where those who work for IBM can post comments about what’s going on inside the company. No one knows exactly how many people IBM will cut as part of its 2014 “workforce rebalancing.” IBM won’t comment on the number of employees affected but CFO Martin Schroeter did say that IBM plans to spend $US1 billion on 2014′s cuts, “plus...

The last time JPMorgan had an investor day, Jamie Dimon explained to Mike Mayo why he is richer than him (and pretty much anyone else). This year, Jamie will be more focused on explaining to 8,000 JPM workers why after firing 16,500 people in consumer and mortgage banking, the bank will now let go another 2K and 6K in those same two groups (which will bring total mortgage and consumer banking headcount reductions between 2013 and 2014 to at least 17K and 7.5K, respectively). This may be tricky especially in the context of, you know, the housing and economic...

But it's "only" 2.3%! How can such a tiny tax have such a large negative impact? That's the thinking of the excise tax supporters who think that the medical device industry can "easily afford" the tax (New York Times) and besides, they deserve it because they're "anti-competitive": A new survey says Obamacare's tax on medical device manufacturers has cost the industry about 33,000 jobs.In a report this week, the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) said companies cut about 14,000 workers and decided not to hire about 19,000 workers because of theThe report also said the 2.3 percent excise tax also...

<p>Sbarro Inc. says it's closing 155 of its U.S. locations, mostly in mall food courts where traffic has declined. The Melville, N.Y.-based pizza chain said Wednesday the closures affect 1,400 workers. The move comes as the company is trying to improve its financial performance and update its image under yet another CEO who took over just last year. Jonathan Dedmon, a representative for Sbarro, says the targeted locations will close Thursday. "The last day of business is today," he wrote in an email. Sbarro filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2012 when it was no longer able to contend with declining sales and rising costs. It emerged from Chapter 11 protection in November 2012, saying that it had significantly cut its debt and received a new $35 million capital infusion. Shortly after, it named James Greco, a former head of bagel chain Bruegger's Enterprises, as its CEO. Greco led a push to revitalize the chain's image by touting new recipes and ovens. But the efforts apparently didn't take hold; Sbarro named David Karam its CEO last year. Dedmon did not respond when asked why Greco was replaced. Sbarro owns 400 locations in North America. The closures do not affect the additional 175 Sbarro locations in the region that are owned by franchisees. After the closures, Sbarro said it will operate 800 stores worldwide, including 81 that were opened last year.</p>

WASHINGTON -- Initial jobless claims rose last week, but remained at a level consistent with moderate labor market growth amid mixed signals recently about the strength of the economic recovery. About 339,000 people applied for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ended Saturday, up from 331,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists had projected a slight decrease to 330,000. The weekly claims figure, a key labor market indicator, has settled in recent weeks to about 335,000 after the usual holiday season volatility. The four-week average rose 3,500 last week, to 336,750. Economists say claims below 350,000 indicate...

About 1,000 local jobs will be affected when Verizon Wireless closes its customer contact centers in Cranberry and Warrendale in May as part of a national realignment of 5,000 employees, the company announced Wednesday. Verizon Wireless said a total of five customer contact centers will close in May. For the 1,000 local customer service employees affected, options are to apply for other positions locally, to relocate to one of 26 out-of-state customer contact centers or to accept a severance package. Employees eligible for out-of-state relocation will receive a $10,000 relocation assistance package. The company also is offering employees seeking to...

Research Triangle Park, N.C. — Dispatches from the firing line at IBM: "People broke down after seeing the inhuman treatment. Laptops along with the cases were confiscated, so several employees were seen crying and exiting building carrying and balancing their personal belongings with their two hands." "IBM STG INDIA is doing RA and it is very deep and numbers are huge." "Just heard from a colleague in Bangalore that job cuts there have begun. Workers asked to leave on the spot. He claims 6 out of 23 people in his department." RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - IBM's latest $1 billion...

Highmark Inc. laid off 132 workers in information technology and sales on Tuesday, including 65 in Pittsburgh, saying that it needed to align its workforce with its changing business.

Anyone following the debates over ObamaCare has been hearing a lot about "job lock" these days. "The Affordable Care Act will enable more than 2 million workers to escape 'job-lock' — the situation where workers remain tied to employers for access to health insurance benefits," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to cite just one example. All this job-lock talk was sparked to defend ObamaCare after the Congressional Budget Office reported the work disincentives it creates will lead to the loss of the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time jobs. But it turns out that the Democrats' claim that millions...

How will the feds know what employers were thinking when hiring and firing? Simple. Firms will be required to certify to the IRS – under penalty of perjury – that ObamaCare was not a motivating factor in their staffing decisions. To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so.

It is not easy for one bank to anger more people with one announcement than what Barclays did in the past 24 hours. In one fell swoop, the British bank infuriated shareholders after announcing dismal earnings (an adjusted Q4 profit of about 200 million pounds and a statutory profit of less than 100 million as investment banking income slumped 37% as income fell 9% to 10.7 billion due to a fall in fixed income, and it took further charges related to a cleanup of the banking industry in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis) which sent the share...