With so much in the news about job cuts and closures of well-known dot com companies, we at SearchtheWeb.com thought we would track these companies and Internet related sites and provide you with updated short news announcements on their status.

Dot Com News from Week of March 17, 2003

3/21/03 Boeing said it issued layoff notices to 960 employees, mostly in its commercial-airplane division. Another 460 workers also left Boeing's payroll Friday. Those employees received layoff notices Jan. 17. 3/21/03 SonicBlue will seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and sell three units as the maker of the ReplayTV and Rio digital-recording devices copes with backlash from the entertainment industry. 3/21/03 Northwest Airlines said it will cut 4,900 jobs and reduce its flight schedule by 12% because of a drop in passenger demand because of the war in Iraq. Northwest also said it would idle 20 planes. 3/20/03 Solectron announced 12,000 additional layoffs and a new wave of factory closures after posting a slightly narrower fiscal second-quarter net loss on lower costs. 3/20/03 Textron Inc. said its Cessna unit will lay off 1,200 workers because of worsening sales, in the latest sign of weakness in the business-jet market. Cessna, which employs about 11,000 of Textron's 49,000 workers also plans an extended summer furlough for 6,000 workers at the Wichita, Kan., plant that makes business jets. Textron initially planned a one-week furlough but extended it to seven weeks, starting June 20. 3/18/03 Continental Airlines said it would cut 1,200 jobs by year's end and implement other cost-saving measures to trim $500 million in annual expenses. The airline, which already has 4,300 of its 48,000 employees on furlough, said the cuts were necessary to ensure survival in the worst industry downturn in aviation history. 3/18/03 Yahoo confirmed that it laid off an undisclosed number of employees from its HotJobs subsidiary, raising questions about whether the struggling labor market may be taking its toll on the online job listings business. 3/18/03 August Technology Corp., Minneapolis, reduced its staff by 17% as part of a plan that will save the company about $2.3 million annually. The company, which makes semiconductor-inspection equipment, said it laid off about 30 direct, contract and temporary employees, in response to continued uncertainty in the microelectronics industry. The staff cuts, which took place across all lines of the company's business, leaves a work force of about 146 employees. 3/18/03 The U.S. high-tech industry shed 560,000 jobs, or 10% of its work force, during the two years from January 2001 to December 2002, according to a study. 3/18/03 BellSouth, continuing to cut jobs as its revenues decline, will eliminate 1,077 positions in nine states, mostly in its network and central-office operations where "volume of work has substantially decreased". Of those jobs, 431 are in Georgia, including 370 in metro Atlanta, where BellSouth has total employment of 18,000. Some workers, who are represented by the Communications Workers of America [CWA], may retire early. 3/17/03 A risky bet on credit cards several years ago came back to haunt Spiegel Group Inc., as the beleaguered retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Spiegel said it ran out of cash after it was forced to repay investors who bought securities backed by its credit-card receivables. Last week Spiegel warned it might have to seek Chapter 11 protection because of the repayments. The 138-year-old company, based in Downers Grove, Ill., operates the Eddie Bauer apparel chain and the Spiegel and Newport News catalogs. 3/17/03 Applied Materials Inc. said it is cutting 2,000 jobs, or 14% of its staff, and taking as much as $425 million in restructuring charges during the next four quarters, in a sign that the bellwether maker of chip-manufacturing gear still sees no sign of recovery for the sector. 3/17/03 In its third restructuring in three years, personal-computer maker Gateway Inc. said it would take more deep cuts, including reducing its staff by 17% and closing more than a quarter of its remaining retail stores. The home-PC maker will dismiss 1,900 of its 11,100 employees and shutter a further 76 of its 268 U.S. retail stores to halt losses that have reached a cumulative $1.34 billion in the past eight quarters.

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