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Initial jobless claims unexpectedly jumped to a nine-month high last week, an indication that severe winter weather could be putting a temporary freeze on the labor market's recovery. About 320,000 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, up 7,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists had been expecting claims to fall to 300,000. Claims below that level indicate a strong labor market. Private sector added 212,000 jobs last month, down from January, ADP says Private sector added 212,000 jobs last month, down from January, ADP says In another read on the jobs market, planned layoffs...

Some senior buyers are already gone. Vice presidents, too. But for 13,000 other Target Corp. employees in Minnesota, there's fear that the bull's-eye is on their backs. Target jolted the Twin Cities on Tuesday when it said "several thousand" corporate staffers will be laid off in a cost-cutting move. Executives didn't say who, when or where -- although the buzz is the ax will swing freely next week. Since the news broke, reaction to Target's $2 billion cost-savings plan has been split, especially by street. On Wall Street, analysts mostly liked the plan. Target stock touched an all-time high Wednesday...

"RBS has been a bruising place to work ... and that doesn't sit well with me," the Royal Bank of Scotland CEO McEwan said on Thursday. "We will work hard to make [RBS] a much better place for our people." McEwan mentioned on a conference call last week that there would be "substantial job losses" and that "we haven't got a number out there because we've got a lot of consultation to do with our people." Little did his staff know that this meant about three out of four people working in the investment banking part of the bank would...

An OfficeMax call center in Peru is closing its doors, beginning layoffs in March, according to two sources. Layoffs should be completed in November. A news story in 2013 indicated 275 people worked at the Peru facility. Employees on Thursday were instructed not to speak to the media about the layoffs. OfficeMax merged with Office Depot in 2013. As previously reported, the combined company disappointed state lawmakers by locating its headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla. (Office Depot’s longtime home) and pulling out of Naperville, where OfficeMax had been headquartered. OfficeMax workers have dealt with uncertainty about their jobs for the...

JPMorgan Chase plans to close 300 bank branches over the next two years, about 5 percent of the total, as more customers move online and the bank seeks to cut costs. The closures are part of a $1.4 billion cost-cutting plan the bank announced for this year. The latest developments were revealed during the bank's annual investor day conference Tuesday. Online and mobile banking have become increasingly popular and that trend is expected to continue. The shift online has begun to make brick-and-mortar branches less necessary and, frankly, expensive. Tellers handled only 42 percent of all bank deposits last year,...

The biggest scandal in today's release of Hewlett Packard Q1 earnings was not that, just as the Nasdaq is knocking on 5000's door, it reported revenues of $26.8 billion missing consensus expectations of $27.3 billion, while beating non-GAAP EPS by 1 cent to $0.92 (up from $0.90 a year ago) entirely due to a massive reduction in outstanding stock and some truly gargantuan non-GAAP addbacks (GAAP EPS declined from $0.74 a year ago to $0.73) pushing the stock down 7% after hours. The biggest scandal was the company announced that having cut 44,000 workers so far, it will cut...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Family Christian Stores, the nation's largest Christian bookstore and gift chain, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in hopes of restructuring its debt in the face of declining sales. The Grand Rapids-based chain said it does not expect to close any of its 266 stores in 36 states or layoff any of its 3,100 full-time and part-time employees. "We strive to serve God in all that we do and trust his guidance in all our decisions, especially this very important one," said President and CEO Chuck Bengochea in a news release. "We have carefully and prayerfully...

For years, RadioShack — the retailer that helped bring personal computers to the masses — outlasted untold predictions that it would buckle in the face of bigger rivals and online competitors. But its clock has finally run out. RadioShack, a long-ailing 94-year-old electronics chain, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday after striking a deal to sell up to 2,400 of its stores to the wireless service provider Sprint and a hedge fund that is its biggest shareholder. The Chapter 11 filing, made in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, took few unaware. RadioShack had not turned a profit since 2011, and...

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Notices have gone out to more than 1,700 Izod Center workers that they'll lose their jobs by the end of March because the arena is closing. Almost all of the employees are part-time. The Record (http://bit.ly/1zPZgk1 ) reports the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority says the layoffs include 618 stagehands, 263 security guards, 169 admissions workers, 116 trades workers, 66 box office employees, and 50 parking attendants....

Weatherford International plans to cut 5,000 jobs, or about 9 percent of its workforce, by the end of the first quarter as the oil services company tries to save costs amid sinking oil prices and budget cuts. The job cuts will focus on both operating and support positions and a majority of the reductions will be in the Western Hemisphere, the company said in a statement. Weatherford, which currently employs about 56,000 people across the world, expects the job cuts to result in annualized savings of over $350 million. "Due to the quickly changing market conditions, we are aligning and...

Anti-union forces claim UAW ‘stuffed’ ballot box. Workers in Alabama are staging a fourth attempt to kick the United Auto Workers (UAW) out of their plant following claims that stuffed ballot boxes derailed their last vote. Employees at the NTN-Bower Corporation, a ball bearings manufacturer, have unsuccessfully tried to boot the labor giant out of their factory for two years. Workers voted to decertify the UAW in an earlier election, but an Obama-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) panel threw out the election. Another election was held in January of this year. The UAW prevailed, but it was later revealed...

In a move expected to accelerate the shutdown of office-supply stores across the U.S., Staples Inc. has agreed to pay stock worth $6.3 billion to acquire rival Office Depot, which last year absorbed the former Office Max chain. The price works out to $11 per Office Depot share, up from $7.60 on Monday (Office Depot shares started rising Tuesday as deal rumors were reported in the financial news). "Financially this transaction makes sense and is necessary to the longterm health of these two companies," retail analyst David Strasser told investors for Janney Capital Markets in a report today. Both Staples,...

Tulsa-based drilling rig maker and operator Helmerich & Payne Inc. expects to lay off 2,000 employees companywide, it announced Thursday during a conference call. The cuts, which are already beginning, are spurred by a reduction in rig use due to falling crude oil prices, CEO John Lindsay said during the earning call with analysts. Helmerich & Payne employs about 500 in Tulsa and nearly 12,000 companywide. The overall reduction is about 17 percent of the company’s total workforce. “This is without question the worst part of the downturn,” Lindsay said. Lindsay revealed the layoffs shortly after a company earnings report...

HOUSTON — ConocoPhillips has told its employees layoffs could be on the way, as the independent producer looks to reign in spending amid lower crude prices. The layoffs and an accompanying pay freeze will supplement cost-control steps the Houston company has already taken, such as slashing its exploration and production budget, Daren Beaudo, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, said in an emailed statement. The company did not detail how many workers would be let go or when the job cuts could take place. “As with our capital program we will be deferring, delaying or eliminating controllable costs where we can,” he...

The VAR Guy reported last week that IBM's massive layoffs would begin this week — and this seems to be the case. Word surfaced last weekend that IBM is prepping to layoff up to 26 percent of its global workforce, or some 100,000 workers.Many of these layoffs come on the heels of Lance Crosby's resignation. Crosby, the founder of SoftLayer, a company IBM acquired for around $2 billion in July 2013, said in a statement that he was taking some time off before pursuing his "next challenge."Here's what you need to know about IBM's most recent round of layoffs....

Research Triangle Park, N.C. — A "resource action," or layoffs, are underway at IBM (NYSE: IBM) under the name "Project Chrome," workers are telling the Alliance@IBM Union. "Bloodbath today," wrote an IBMer in Columbia, Mo. "Me? Yes, RA'd." “At a time when IBM is aggressively transforming, the company continues to rebalance its workforce to meet the changing requirements of its clients and to lead in new, high value segments of the IT industry, including cloud, analytics, mobile, security, social and cognitive computing. This is not new news," IBM said in a statement. "IBM announced a $600 million workforce rebalancing charge...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits tumbled last week to its lowest level in nearly 15 years, adding to bullish signals on the labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 43,000 to a seasonally adjusted 265,000 for the week ended Jan. 24, the lowest since April 2000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. It was the biggest weekly decline since November 2012. The drop, which far exceeded economists' expectations for a fall to only 300,000, probably exaggerates the strength of the jobs market as the data included the Martin Luther King...

Foxconn, a supplier for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), has announced that it’s cutting its workforce. The exact number of employees that will be affected by the Foxconn layoffs hasn’t been announced. The company also hasn’t said when the layoffs will go into effect. The job cuts come as the company faces higher wages in China and less revenue growth, reports Reuters. The Foxconn layoffs are also likely affected by the company’s desire to replace workers with robots. The use of robotic arms in some parts of the company’s work will allow the company to replace workers that were performing simple tasks, Reuters...

IBM denies the rumor about the layoffs of more than 100,000 IBM employees. The company says that only “several thousand” IBM employees will be affected by the layoffs. In an email statement from IBM to Reuters, IBM officially denied the rumor concerning as many as 112,000 employees. According to the Jan. 26 Reuters report, “IBM is in the process of layoffs, as disclosed in its latest earnings report last week, but it will affect ‘several thousand’ employees only.” The layoffs of as many as 112,000 of the company’s employees would affect 26 percent of its global workforce. Robert Cringely, a...

Biggest corporate lay-off in history is expected within days, with IBM believed to be scrapping 110,000 of its 430,000 workforce around the world IBM is preparing to scrap 110,000 of its global 430,000 workforce in the biggest corporate cull in the computer giant's history, a report has revealed. The company will make the job cuts this week under a plan known internally as 'project chrome', according to US technology blogger Robert Cringely on Forbes website. IBM is in the process of layoffs, as disclosed in its latest earnings report last week but said the number of job losses was significantly...