Heinz and Kraft

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I'ma go ahead and give the snippet:

"Kraft Heinz Co. said it is cutting 2,500 jobs in North America—more than 5% of its global workforce—as it aims to slash at least $1.5 billion from the newly combined company’s annual budget. "

Like Gilligan said, that is huge.
 
I'ma go ahead and give the snippet:

"Kraft Heinz Co. said it is cutting 2,500 jobs in North America—more than 5% of its global workforce—as it aims to slash at least $1.5 billion from the newly combined company’s annual budget. "

Like Gilligan said, that is huge.

Not really. Given the amount of cost savings that the companies indicated they expected to realize when they announced the deal back in March, I think it would have been reasonable to expect at least that many domestic lay-offs (though all of those 2,500 aren't domestic). I suspect we'll see more lay-offs from them over the next couple of years. Think about how much overlap in employee roles there would be between those kinds of companies - in sales, distribution, marketing, all kinds of operational stuff. That's a big part of why deals like his one make sense, those kinds of synergies. Synergy is often just a fancy way of referring to savings from being able to lay-off employees that will be redundant. It can refer to more than that of course, but that can be a big part of it. And part of the point of this deal is to make Kraft, which is by far the bigger operation of the two, more of a global player. So domestic lay-offs may make even more sense for that reason. It's not an indication of the companies doing poorly or something like that.

In an economy of our size that number of lay-offs barely amounts to a drop in the bucket. Even during the best of times we have at least a quarter million lay-offs in this country every week. That doesn't include people who are fired or who quit. Including those we have more like a million plus separations per week. (Of course, even one lay-off can be a big deal to the person who was layed off and their family.)

Anyway, that's why I thought Gilligan might be referring to the size of the deal, not to the number of lay-offs being a big deal. Warren Buffett laid out a decent chunk of cash to make this deal happen and retain majority control for his company and 3G even though the business they were bringing to the table (Heinz) was significantly smaller than the one they were (effectively) merging it with (Kraft). And I think this was the biggest stock deal he's ever done.
 
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tommyjo

New Member
I'ma go ahead and give the snippet:

"Kraft Heinz Co. said it is cutting 2,500 jobs in North America—more than 5% of its global workforce—as it aims to slash at least $1.5 billion from the newly combined company’s annual budget. "

Like Gilligan said, that is huge.

No it is not. Gilligan's just showing his bias to posting only bad news and his inability to understand the differences between micro and macro economics.

If you want to track layoff announcements, follow the monthly Challenger Gray and Christmas report. (look them up and go to their press release section...I get tired of posting the same educational sites for those here)

CGC reported an elevated July layoff announcement. Mainly due to govt layoffs in the military. (You see when you rail for reduced govt spending, people lose their jobs...) Here is what they had to say in July:

More than half of the July job cuts were the result of massive troop and civilian workforce reductions announced by the United States Army. The cutbacks will eliminate 57,000 from government payrolls over the next two years.

and

“When the military makes cuts, they tend to be deep. In fact, the last time we saw more than 100,000 job cuts in September of 2011, it was 50,000 cuts by the US Army that dominated the total. With wars in Afghanistan and Iraq winding down and pressure to cut government spending, the military has been vulnerable to reductions,” said Challenger. Indeed, some of the biggest job cuts announced in recent years have come from the military and other government agencies. In addition to the 50,000 cuts announced by the US Army in 2011, the United States Air Force announced plans in 2005 to reduce its headcount by 40,000. Between
2002 and 2010, the United States Post Office announced three separate job cuts that affected a total of 90,000 workers.

“The transition from the military to the civilian workforce is always challenging, but the economy is in a much better position to absorb this influx of job seekers now, compared to two or three years ago. This does not mean it will be easy for these service men and women, most of whom undoubtedly thought the military would offer career-long job security,” noted Challenger.
 

tommyjo

New Member
In an economy of our size that number of lay-offs barely amounts to a drop in the bucket. Even during the best of times we have at least a quarter million lay-offs in this country every week. That doesn't include people who are fired or who quit. Including those we have more like a million plus separations per week. (Of course, even one lay-off can be a big deal to the person who was layed off and their family.)

Anyway, that's why I thought Gilligan might be referring to the size of the deal, not to the number of lay-offs being a big deal. Warren Buffett laid out a decent chunk of cash to make this deal happen and retain majority control for his company and 3G even though the business they were bringing to the table (Heinz) was significantly smaller than the one they were (effectively) merging it with (Kraft). And I think this was the biggest stock deal he's ever done.

This is also inaccurate. The weekly initial jobless claims data (this week's report is due out this morning at 8:30) includes all individuals who file a first time claim for unemployment benefits. This does include those who quit or were fired. The initial jobless claims data only tracks those who file unemployment claims. Not everyone who becomes unemployed immediately files for unemployment. During 2015, weekly jobless claims have been running near the lowest levels recorded since the late 90s.

The Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reports total numbers for a month. It was released yesterday (no mention of this from Gilligan as the news is still positive). Here is it if you wish to go read it: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm This report does separate out the types of separation.

In June there were 2.7 million quits, 1.8 million layoffs and discharges and 392,000 "other" separations.

Total job opening were 5.2 million (also a very strong number historically) and total separations were 4.9 million. The difference (without the rounding) roughly equates to the U3 employment data that comes out on the first Friday of the month.
 
This is also inaccurate. The weekly initial jobless claims data (this week's report is due out this morning at 8:30) includes all individuals who file a first time claim for unemployment benefits. This does include those who quit or were fired. The initial jobless claims data only tracks those who file unemployment claims. Not everyone who becomes unemployed immediately files for unemployment. During 2015, weekly jobless claims have been running near the lowest levels recorded since the late 90s.

The Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reports total numbers for a month. It was released yesterday (no mention of this from Gilligan as the news is still positive). Here is it if you wish to go read it: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm This report does separate out the types of separation.

In June there were 2.7 million quits, 1.8 million layoffs and discharges and 392,000 "other" separations.

Total job opening were 5.2 million (also a very strong number historically) and total separations were 4.9 million. The difference (without the rounding) roughly equates to the U3 employment data that comes out on the first Friday of the month.

I've kinda stopped responding to you, even when you say things that don't make sense in response to things I've said (though, to be clear, very often the things you say do make sense), because the best I can tell it's a waste of time as you never seem to return to threads to discuss things so I've no way of knowing whether you read my attempts to clear things up for you. I suppose there's value in responding so that others can read, but frankly I question that value as I get the impression I'm one of only a few people here that actually pays real attention to things you say anyway. Most seem to dismiss you, rightly or wrongly, out of hand.

That said, I'm going to try again to see if you actually want to discuss something. Of course I'm familiar with both those sources of information, I've posted about them before. I've typically looked through the weekly UI report within 5 minutes of it coming out and the monthly JOLTS report within a day or two. What is it in either of those reports that you think demonstrates that what I said was inaccurate? What I said was imprecise to some extent of course, I used very round numbers (quarter million and million). That was intentional. But what in those reports shows what I said to be wrong?
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
No it is not. Gilligan's just showing his bias

Sorry moron. Not even close in any way shape or form..and I'll put my business and economics education up against your sorry self any day of any week.

My "big" comments refers to how huge the merged company is and how much product it now covers. The layoffs, on the other hand, seemed pretty modest number considering the total number of employees in the now-combined companies.
 
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