Joined: 02-24-2012 Posts: 17,278 |
Ok Henny Penny I'll bite.DrMaddVibe wrote:For those keeping score...
1. Twitch: 35% of workforce
REUTERS - 6:31 PM ET 1/9/2024 - Amazon.com's ( AMZN ) streaming unit Twitch is set to cut 35% of its staff, or about 500 workers, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the plans.
The move could be announced as soon as Wednesday, the report added.
The business remains unprofitable nine years after Amazon's ( AMZN ) acquisition of the company, the report said.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in December that the company would shut down operations in South Korea in February this year, due to high operating costs and network fees.
The company had laid off more than 400 employees in March last year after its user and revenue growth did not meet expectations.
1) In what world is the loss of 500 jobs a meaningful measure of the US economy?
2) It should be no surprise that a company that has been unprofitable for 9 years is cutting its workforce.
3) This more an example of a company that is about to go under because it's not a viable entity, current state of the economy notwithstanding.
STRIKE 1, Henny Penny!
2. Roomba: 31% of workforce
MT NEWSWIRES - 11:16 AM ET 1/29/2024The Roomba maker separately on Monday said it launched an operational restructuring plan that will eliminate 350 positions, or 31% of its workforce. The company expects to record restructuring charges of $12 million to $13 million over the first two quarters of 2024 due primarily to severance and other related costs.
REUTERS - 5:59 PM ET 1/18/2024 -The European Union's competition watchdog plans to block Amazon.com's ( AMZN ) $1.4 billion acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot, The Wall Street Journal said on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Shares of the Roomba vacuum maker plunged nearly 40% to $14.3 in trading after the bell.
3. Hasbro: 20% of workforce
Forbes Feb 13, 2024,11:50am EST - Hasbro also had to clear out a tremendous amount of excess inventory, Zahn said. “We saw it show up in the value channel last fall,” he said. “Off-price retailers including Ollie’s, Ross Dress for Less, Marshall’s, T.J. Maxx and Burlington had top-quality Hasbro products for pennies on the dollar during the holiday season.”
PAWTUCKET, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 2023 - In October 2022, the Company announced a goal of delivering $250-300 million in annualized run-rate cost savings by year-end 2025. In alignment with this program’s objectives, the Company is undertaking organizational changes that will result in the elimination of approximately 1,000 positions from its global workforce this year, or approximately 15% of global full-time employees. The changes will include a new organizational model, commercial alignment, and leadership changes that the Company will discuss in more detail on its upcoming earnings conference call.
CNBC DEC 12 20231:52 PM EST - Popular toy brand sales had dropped significantly, Hasbro also said in the October quarterly report. Popular brands like My Little Pony, Nerf and Transformer had fallen 18% at the time, due to “softer category trends.”
Hasbro’s stock was down nearly 20% through Monday’s close.
Hasbro competitor Mattel had also warned of soft sales. Yet Mattel’s stock is up about 6% through Monday, powered a great deal by the box office success of the film “Barbie.” That’s still behind the 17% gain posted by the S&P 500 so far this year, though.
AP - Updated 7:08 PM CST, December 11, 2023 - Like many toy companies, Hasbro is struggling with a slowdown in sales after a surge during pandemic lockdowns when parents were splurging on toys to keep their children busy.
Last holiday season, many toy companies had to slash prices to get rid of merchandise due to weak demand. And the challenges have continued. Toy sales in the U.S. were down 8% from January through August, based on Circana’s most recent data.
Fortune January 26, 2023 at 5:30 PM CST - As part of a restructuring announced in October, Hasbro asked JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Centerview Partners to steer a sale process for most of its Entertainment One film and TV division after a large number of potential buyers came forward.
Bloomburg August 21, 2022 at 5:00 PM CDT - In August 2019, Hasbro Inc. announced it was paying about $4 billion to acquire Entertainment One (eOne), the Canadian media company best known for the kids’ TV series “Peppa Pig” and “PJ Masks.”
1) Over the years Hasboro has expanded by increasing it's own brands as well as purchasing other ongoing concerns. Doing so it hasn't integrated those expansions efficiently. The workforce downsizing is a natural occurrence when a company experiences less than expected profitability.
2) Hasbro bought a poorly performing media company and wasn't able to turn it around.
STRIKE 3, Henny Penny!
4. LA Times: 20% of workforce
CNN - Updated 6:20 PM EST, Tue January 23, 2024“This staffing cut is the fruit of years of middling strategy, the absence of a publisher, and no clear direction,” the union said in a statement. “But it’s clear that those entrusted to steward [the Soon-Shiong] family’s largesse have failed him — not the rank-and-file staff members with no say in editorial priorities.”
AP Updated 6:16 PM CST, January 23, 2024 - The Los Angeles Times said it planned to lay off at least 115 employees — more than 20% of the newsroom — starting Tuesday, one of the largest staff cuts in the newspaper’s 143-year history.
The cuts were necessary because the Times could no longer lose up to $40 million a year without boosting advertising and subscription revenue, the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said Tuesday.
The Wrap - March 25, 2021 @ 1:10 PM - The Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune lost “north of $50 million” in revenue in 2020, company leadership told staffers at an all-hands meeting on Thursday. Chris Argentieri, the president of the two papers’ California Times parent company, described the losses as a “catastrophic drop in revenue for the company north of $50 million on top of a business that was already using cash and not producing cash,” according to a recording of the meeting obtained by TheWrap. The majority of the losses came from print advertising, though digital advertising and print circulation also sustained some losses. “What we saw in 2020 was [an] acceleration of trends that we were well aware of and have been aware of, really, for far more than a decade,” Argentieri said. “We won’t go back, particularly in print advertising, to where we were.”
1) The 20% you quote is newsroom staff, not the business itself.
2) The LA Times has been losing money for many, many years. It's no surprise that the cuts were made, recession or not.
STRIKE 4, Henny Penny! Maybe I'll take a look at the others. But so far, it's looking like the "Biden Recession" has little to do with any of the companies you've posted so far.
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