Word: slump
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Most staff workers had forecasted the news for months, and the unprecedented fiscal slump had left no budget-cutting measure too improbable to consider. But the reality of losing 275 employees in one sweep has nonetheless aroused the bitterness of staff members who learned Tuesday morning of the downsizing to come...
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch recently stated the obvious when he said the newspaper business model of providing content online for free was "malfunctioning." Poleaxed by a severe ad slump and hemorrhaging red ink, printed newspapers and magazines have been downsizing or closing in some countries, even as their digital editions attract growing numbers of readers. Murdoch - whose News Corp. media empire includes the Wall Street Journal, a rare newspaper with a profitable, subscription-based website - has vowed to boost the earning power of his digital properties by increasing the number of News Corp. sites that charge for content. Other publishers...
...from certain that the dramatic - some might say desperate - call for volunteers will be a significant cost-cutting measure. Hit hard by the slump in air travel following the first Gulf War, BA gave away some $10 million worth of seats in what it dubbed the "world's greatest offer." That move "had a party atmosphere and a confidence and scale that actually built the BA brand despite the fact that it was giving stuff away for free," recalls Rita Clifton, chairman of global brand consultancy Interbrand...
...Unlike the Gulf War-related slump of the early '90s, the causes of BA's troubles are less clear this time around, Clifton says. Is it internal factors, the global downturn, the problems when Heathrow's Terminal 5 opened last year? Because of that ambiguity, "staff and observers won't necessarily think, This is all to do with external forces, so we've all got to pull together here," Clifton says. Seems like you can ask for that second pillow, after...
...slump faced by U.S. and European automakers has encouraged Chinese companies - buoyed by China's ranking as the world's largest car market in the first quarter of 2009 - to hunt for buyout candidates overseas. "It's definitely a good time to buy Hummer," says Liu Chang of Sinomind Management Consulting in Beijing. "GM wouldn't sell it if it was in better shape." But China's previous results from acquisitions of foreign automakers have been poor. In 2004, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. paid $500 million for a 49% stake in South Korea's Ssangyong Motors, which declared bankruptcy...