Kodak To Shutter 10,000 More Jobs
Eastman Kodak Co. said Wednesday it will cut as many as 10,000 jobs in addition to the 15,000 already announced as the photographic products company announced it swung to a loss in the second quarter from a year-ago profit.
Eastman Kodak's quarterly loss totaled $146 million, or 51 cents per share, compared with earnings of $136 million, or 46 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue grew 6 percent to $3.69 billion from $3.46 billion last year.
Excluding restructuring charges, research and development costs and an asset impairment charge from an investment in Lucky Film, Kodak would have posted earnings from continuing operations of 53 cents per share in the latest quarter.
As part of the effort to accelerate its digital transformation and to respond to a faster-than-expected decline in consumer film sales, Kodak said it will extend the restructuring activity originally announced in January 2004, in which the company set plans to reduce employment worldwide by as many as 15,000 positions.
"In 24 months, as a result of the actions announced today, we will ... essentially complete the transition to our digital business model," said Antonio Perez, Kodak's president and chief executive officer.
Kodak now plans to cut 22,500 to 25,000 jobs, and reduce its traditional manufacturing infrastructure to about $1 billion, compared with $2.9 billion in January 2004. The restructuring is expected to be largely completed by the middle of 2007.
"Sales of our consumer traditional products and services are declining faster than expected," said Perez. "While we are not in a position to control the rate at which traditional markets decline, there is a lot I can do about the cost structure of the traditional portfolio."
Kodak's announcement follows by a day personal-computer maker Hewlett Packard's plans to cut 14,500 jobs, about 10 percent of its full-time staff, as part of a restructuring plan designed to save $1.9 billion annually and boost business performance.
The new cuts will almost certainly end Kodak's role as the largest employer in the Rochester, N.Y., region. Its major manufacturing facilities are in Rochester itself and Greece, N.Y. At the end of 2004, Kodak employed 16,300 people in Rochester, just ahead of the University of Rochester and its medical center.
Two decades ago, it employed 60,400 people in the area, or 19 percent of the workers.