DuPont To Dump 4,000 Jobs
DuPont Co. announced Monday it will cut 4,000 jobs and shut down several manufacturing facilities due to the slumping economy and a weak textile and apparel market.
The cuts represent 4 percent of the chemical and textile giant's global work force. The company also said it will eliminate 1,300 contract jobs.
A number of other companies in a range of industries from Lucent Technologies and Motorola to The Walt Disney Co. have recently announced job cutbacks as the economy has slowed.
Hardest hit in the latest cutbacks will be DuPont's polyester and nylon divisions, with about 2,000 jobs being slashed from those two sectors. Roughly 75 percent of the total job cuts will be at U.S. facilities.
DuPont also said its agriculture-related businesses -- Pioneer, Crop Protection and Nutrition & Health -- will accelerate their integration of research and development, staff and commercial organizations. The company did not elaborate.
DuPont expects to save $400 million with the move, most of which will be realized in 2002. The company expects to take a one-time second quarter charge of 40 to 45 cents per share because of the cuts, mostly due to severance pay.
The company will shut several nylon and polyester manufacturing operations and cuts jobs at facilities that produce Lycra fabric.
"We are doing what is necessary to assure the competitiveness of our individual businesses and the performance of DuPont as a whole," said DuPont chairman and CEO Charles O. Holliday Jr.
DuPont has 93,000 employees in 70 countries worldwide.
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