Honeywell International expected to cut 20,000 jobs after GE merger Dow Jones News Service Thursday, January 18, 2001

Honeywell International is expected to cut at least 20,000 jobs following the completion of its acquisition by General Electric Co., according to some analysts.

Jack Welch Jr., GE chairman and CEO, said Wednesday the company expects "significant" layoffs this year, but the company wouldn't provide specifics. Several analysts estimated that the final number will be between 60,000 and 70,000 at a minimum between GE, with its 340,000 workers, and Honeywell, which GE is acquiring and which has 120,000 workers.

Honeywell officials declined to comment Wednesday on Welch's remarks about cutbacks or on how the layoffs might affect the Twin Cities Honeywell operations.

Honeywell already has said it will eliminate about 550 jobs with the closure of its Morris Township, N.J., headquarters. Roughly 10,000 jobs could be shed because of lower demand in several businesses, analysts said.

Honeywell has 7,300 Twin Cities employees in several business units. Its home and building control business is headquartered in Minneapolis.

Some 24,000 of total number of GE jobs to be cut are at Montgomery Ward, the GE Capital-owned chain whose closure was announced in late December. GE already has said it expects to eliminate about 11,000 more jobs across the company as it replaces some administrative functions with Internet-based systems, part of $1.5 billion in annual savings it has said the Internet will provide this year.

In response to a query, Welch said: "We have no layoff targets and no companywide numbers. We never announce overall layoffs. ... We leave it up to individual businesses to decide what actions are necessary to meet their objectives. However, it's clear we'll need fewer jobs at GE because of redundancies from the Honeywell acquisition, the Montgomery Wards bankruptcy, modest volume-related reductions and GE's digitization activities. In any foreseeable economic scenario, we expect double-digit to strong double-digit earnings."

Last week, the NBC TV network, which was profitable in the fourth quarter despite an 11 percent revenue drop, said it expects to cut its staff of 6,000 by as much as 10 percent in the coming months, but no other GE units have detailed estimated cuts.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 20, 2001