Dow Chemical Co.

Recession's Biggest Layoffs

Dow Chemical is cutting 5,000 jobs, closing 20 plants worldwide and selling off certain segments of its business. The company also announced plans to eliminate 6,000 contractor positions and temporarily suspend operations at an additional 180 plants. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

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Pink Slips Pile ... Job losses continue to mount amid a deepening U.S. recession. Cutbacks are being felt across all industries, and even international employers aren't immune. Here's a look at some of the most significant layoff announcements in recent months. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
National Semicon... Chip maker National Semiconductor facing a steep decline in sales, said that it will eliminate more than one-quarter of its work force, or 1,725 jobs. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
United Technolog... United Technologies, owners of Sikorsky Aircraft, announced that it will eliminate 11,600 jobs worldwide saying the downturn in its core markets is worse than expected. (AP Photo/Douglas Healey).
Berkshire Hathaw... Last year, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway eliminated positions at half of its nearly 80 operating units. The company recently said more job cuts were coming due to the weakening economy. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, file)
JPMorgan Chase &... To complete the acquisition of Washington Mutual, JPMorgan will cut 12,000 jobs, which is a larger number of layoffs than the company announced in December. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Wal-Mart Stores ... Wal-Mart will eliminate 700 to 800 jobs from the real estate, apparel and health-and-wellness departments at its Arkansas headquarters as the company builds fewer new stores this year and makes other operational changes.
FedEx Freight The FedEx Freight unit of FedEx Corp. announced that it will eliminate about 900 positions from 130 facilities in response to a downturn in the freight industry, which has suffered from low volumes due to weak auto and retail sales. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, file)
General Motors C... GM said that it will cut 10,000 white-collar jobs worldwide this year. These concessions are part of GM's response to its $13.4 billion federal loan package. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
UBS AG The Swiss bank UBS announced that it will cut approximately 2,700 jobs in the face of fourth quarter losses. (AP Photo/Keystone, Alessandro Della Bella, File)
Pioneer Corp. The Japanese electronics company Pioneer Corp. will eliminate 10,000 positions in response to sinking sales of car audio equipment and flat-screen TVs.(AP Photo/Kyodo News, Suou Takekuma)
Nissan Motor Co. Nissan said it plans to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide, or 8.5 percent of its 235,000-strong global workforce, by March 2010 – but it does not expect further job cuts in the U.S. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Macy's Inc. Macy's will cut 7,000 jobs -- nearly 4 percent of its workforce -- at corporate offices, stores and other locations. The department-store chain also announced plans to reduce its contributions to employees' retirement accounts. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Panasonic Corp. The world's largest maker of plasma display TVs, Panasonic, announced the elimination of as many as 15,000 jobs in the face of the global slowdown. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)
PNC Financial Se... Pittsburgh-based regional bank PNC announced it will eliminate approximately 5,800 positions in absorbing rival National City Corp. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)
Sharp Co. Electronics maker Sharp announced that it will cut 1,500 contract workers in Japan as it prepares for its first annual loss. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)
NEC Corp. Japanese electronics company NEC said it will eliminate 20,000 workers to help the company weather the global recession. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)
AstraZeneca PLC British drugmaker AstraZeneca announced that it will cut 6,000 jobs worldwide by 2013. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
AOL Time Warner Time Warner Cable said it is laying off 1,250 people over the next few weeks in the face of slowing growth, a move it expects will save $90 million a year. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett, file)
The ING Group The Dutch financial services company ING said it will cut 7,000 jobs this year as it struggles to deal with bad mortgage debts. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Corning Inc. Corning, the specialty glass and ceramics company, said it is cutting 3,500 jobs, or 13 percent of its payroll, as its liquid-crystal-display glass market of flat-screen televisions slumps. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
Texas Instrument... Dallas-based Texas Instruments announced that it is trimming its workforce by 12 percent, or 3,400 employees, along with news that profit fell 86% from last year. (AP Photo/Donna McWilliam)
International Bu... IBM announced that it is laying off more than 2,800 people in its sales and software groups in the U.S. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
Home Depot Inc. Home Depot will cut 7,000 jobs and close 48 stores as it deals with sluggish sales in a slow housing market. The layoffs include the elimination of 500 office positions and the loss of all jobs at Expo Design Centers. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar announced plans to eliminate around 20,000 jobs, 2,500 of which will be cut via buyouts. The company and its competitors in the heavy-equipment market have seen a drop in spending by their well-heeled energy and mining customers. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Sprint Nextel Co... The nation's third-largest wireless provider plans to lay off 8,000 employees, 14 percent of its workforce. Sprint Nextel seeks to cut its annual costs by $1.2 billion. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Pfizer Inc. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced cost cuts that include 8,000 layoffs in preparation for the end of patent protection for its blockbuster cholesterol drug Lipitor. The company also announced plans to buy rival drugmaker Wyeth in a $68 billion deal. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)
Philips Electron... Philips Electronics will cut 6,000 jobs in response to a severe slowdown in its consumer business. The company expects to realize cost savings of 400 million Euros per year, beginning in the second half of 2009. (AP Photo/Evert Elzinga)
Starbucks Corp. According to a report in the Seattle Times, Starbucks is poised to announce 1,000 more job cuts. The coffee chains layoffs come on t he heels of 600 store closures it announced last year, and are said to affect employees both at headquarters and in the field. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
Microsoft Corp. Microsoft will cut 5,000 jobs in the first mass layoffs in its 34-year history, as demand for personal computers falls. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
Intel Corp Intel announced that it cut as many as 6,000 jobs by closing manufacturing plants in Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as its only remaining factory in Silicon Valley, as the world's largest maker of microprocessors used in personal computers struggles through the recession. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Harley-Davidson ... Harley-Davidson announced that it is scaling back its operating in response to a weak motorcycle market. The company will consolidate and close various plants and cut 1,100 jobs over the next two years. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Warner Bros. Ent... Warner Bros. plans to lay off 800 employees, or 10 percent of its worldwide staff, as the company and entertainment industry struggle to deal with the recession. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Clear Channel Co... Clear Channel said it is cutting 1,850 jobs throughout the company--in radio, outdoor advertising and corporate offices. The cuts represent about 9 percent of its total workforce. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
LM Ericsson Wireless equipment maker Ericsson announced that it will slash 5,000 jobs to offset restructuring charges and weaker handset sales. (AP Photo/Jonas Ekstromer)
ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips announced that it will eliminate 4 percent of its work force this year and trim capital spending because of the recession and low gas prices. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, file)
Advanced Micro D... AMD will eliminate 1,100 jobs and cut salaries on the heels of the recent decline in its share price. (AP Photo/Matthias Rietschel, file)
Boeing Co. Boeing, the world's second-largest airplane maker, plans to lay off 4,500 employees, reducing staff by about 3 percent. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, file)
Schlumberger Ltd Schlumberger, the world's biggest oilfield services company, announced that it was eliminating up to 1,000 of its 19,000 North American positions. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, file)
WellPoint Inc. Indianapolis-based health insurer WellPoint announced it will eliminate 1,500 jobs to reduce costs as it responds to the recession. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)
Toyota Motor Cor... Japanese auto maker Toyota is reducing its temporary work force in Japan from 6,000 to about 3,000 in response to the global economic downturn. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)
Honda Motor Co. Honda said it is eliminating 3,100 temporary workers. The automaker is struggling with sinking global demand. (AP Photo)
Google Inc Google said it is laying off 100 full-time recruiters because the company now needs fewer people focused on hiring. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Delta Air Lines ... Delta, which took over Northwest Airlines last year, has announced that it hopes roughly 2,000 employees will opt for an early retirement program as it aims to trim capacity by as much as 8 percent this year. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)
Seagate Technolo... Two days after Seagate changed executive officers and announced it was cutting 800 U.S.-based workers, the hard-drive manufacturer announced it is eliminating thousands of jobs and slashing some employees' salaries by as much as 25 percent. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)
Motorola Inc. Mobile handset maker Motorola will cut 4,000 jobs in 2009, in addition to the 3,000 layoffs it had already announced in October 2008. (AP Photo/Kai-Uwe Knoth)
Oracle Corp. Oracle cut about 2% of its North American workforce when the company eliminated 500 positions from its sales and consulting staff businesses in North America. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Pfizer Inc Pfizer, the world's biggest drugmaker, said it would cut 800 research positions this year as part of a restructuring.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
Barclays Plc The British banking company Barclays is cutting over 2,100 jobs across its investment banking and investment management divisions. These cuts cover about 7% of their staff. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Walgreen Co. Walgreens announced plans to reduce its workforce by around 1,000 jobs through voluntary and involuntary cuts. The company will offer early-retirement and severance programs to employees in corporate and field-management positions. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
Wells Fargo & Co... Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf said the bank would begin making job cuts in 2009 tied to its recent acquisition of Wachovia. The company currently employs 20,000 in Charlotte, former home of Wachovia's headquarters operations. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Alcoa Inc. Alcoa will eliminate 13,500 salaried positions, 13.5 percent of its workforce, across units in the U.S. and abroad. The Pittsburgh-based aluminum producer also plans to cut 1,100 contractors and sell its electrical and electronic systems, global foil, cast auto wheels and European transportation products businesses. (AP Photo/ Daniel R. Patmore)
Marks & Spencer ... British retailer Marks & Spencer plans to eliminate 1,230 jobs and close 27 stores. The job cuts include 450 employees at corporate headquarters, amounting to nearly 15 percent of that workforce. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Logitech Interna... Logitech, the world's largest computer mouse maker, announced plans to cut 15 percent of its salaried workforce. The company will take a restructuring charge in the fourth quarter due to the downsizing. (AP Photo/Keystone, Laurent Gillieron)
Lenovo Group PC maker Lenovo announced a broad restructuring that will include 2,500 job cuts. The company hopes that the staff reduction, which amounts to roughly 11 percent of its global workforce, will produce $300 million in annual savings for the fiscal year ending in March 2010. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
EMC Corp. EMC plans to lay off 2,400 people, about 9 percent of its workforce. The data-storage company expects to reduce expenses by $350 million in 2009 through the back-office and management cuts. (AP Photo/Gail Oskin)
Best Buy Co. Electronics retailer Best Buy announced that it will offer buyout packages to nearly all of its corporate employees. The company also said it plans to cut capital spending by 50 percent in 2009. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Bank of America ... Bank of America announced that it plans to shed up to 35,000 jobs over the next three years, partially due to its ongoing efforts to integrate the operations of Merrill Lynch & Co. The banking giant's cuts represent around 10 percent of its workforce. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
Office Depot Inc... Office Depot will close 112 stores and eliminate 2,200 jobs -- 9 percent of its workforce -- before the end of the year. The effected stores are spread across the U.S. and Canada. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Rio Tinto Global mining giant Rio Tinto plans to reduce its global workforce by nearly 14,000. The cutbacks represent 13 percent of the company's total headcount, and reflect its wider move to shore up its financial position. (AP Photo/BHP Billiton)
Sony Corp. Sony announced plans to eliminate 16,000 electronics positions -- 8,000 full-time jobs and an additional 8,000 contractors -- by early 2010. The company hopes the cuts, which represent 4 percent of its global workforce, will lead to $1.1 billion per year in cost savings. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)
Dow Chemical Co. Dow Chemical is cutting 5,000 jobs, closing 20 plants worldwide and selling off certain segments of its business. The company also announced plans to eliminate 6,000 contractor positions and temporarily suspend operations at an additional 180 plants. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
3M Co. 3M is cutting 1,800 jobs in the fourth quarter, asking some employees to take unpaid time off around the holidays and postponing its annual merit payouts, which had been scheduled for distribution in April 2009. The company said the layoffs would take place in the U.S., Western Europe and other developed nations. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Viacom Inc. Media conglomerate Viacom announced plans to cut 850 jobs and freeze some senior-level raises. The company will take a restructuring charge of around $400 million due to the cuts, which amount to 7 percent of its workforce. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
AT&T Inc. AT&T, the nation's largest telecommunications company, announced that it plans to eliminate 12,000 jobs starting in December and continuing through 2009. The cuts amount to 4% of the company's total workforce. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
DuPont Co. Chemicals maker DuPont plans to cut 2,500 jobs, primarily in the automotive and construction markets that have been hardest hit during the recession. The company also plans to eliminate 4,000 contractor positions by the end of 2008 and an additional undisclosed number of contractors in 2009. (AP Photo/Keystone, Laurent Gillieron)
Credit Suisse Gr... Credit Suisse announced that it will eliminate 5,300 jobs, 11 percent of its global workforce. A majority of the financial-services firm's cuts will be made in investment banking. (AP Photo/Keystone, Alessandro Della Bella)
Pepsi Bottling G... Pepsi Bottling Group announced a restructuring that it said will affect as many as 2,000 jobs. The world's largest bottler of Pepsi products will lay off nearly 1,000 employees through the restructuring. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Citigroup Inc. Citigroup plans to eliminate 53,000 jobs over the next few quarters. Coupled with 22,000 job cuts that the company had already planned, these new layoffs will bring the total to 20% of Citigroup's global workforce of 375,000. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Sun Microsystems... After eight years of tumultuous financial troubles, Sun Microsystems has announced plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as sales of its high-end computer servers have fallen to record lows. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Yum Brands Inc. Fast-food company Yum Brands will eliminate "several hundred" jobs, including positions at its headquarters in Louisville and additional corporate positions at its Pizza Hut offices in Dallas and Taco Bell offices in Irvine, California. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
BT Group PLC Britain's largest phone company plans to cut 6,000 jobs on top of the 4,000 layoffs it has already made. BT will eliminate nearly 6% of its global workforce; most of the cuts will affect those employed through outside agencies, contractors and offshore workers. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Las Vegas Sands ... Casino operator Las Vegas Sands will lay off as many as 11,000 workers, according to an executive, as the company halts construction on multibillion dollar projects in the Chinese gambling city of Macau. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley became the latest Wall Street firm to announce hefty layoffs. The company will cut 10% of its investment-banking and stock-trading staff, and eliminate an additional 9% of its money-management positions. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
DHL Internationa... Germany's Deutsche Post AG announced that it would cut 9,500 jobs at its DHL unit as the company moves to drastically reduce its U.S. operations. Deutsche Post plans to close all of its DHL Express service centers. (AP Photo/Hermann J. Knippertz)
Nortel Networks ... Nortel, North America's largest maker of telephone equipment, plans to lay off 1,300 employees -- roughly 5% of its workforce. The company also plans to freeze salary increases and cut back on consultants. (CP Photo/Tobin Grimshaw)
Ford Motor Co. Ford announced plans to cut 2,260 white-collar positions, about 10% of its salaried North American workforce, as the auto maker continues to burn through cash at an alarming rate amid slumping sales. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Mattel Inc. Mattel, maker of Barbie, Hot Wheels and Fisher-Price toys, is cutting 3% of its workforce -- including 8% of its management staff -- as it heads into an uncertain holiday season. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)
Fidelity Investm... Fidelity Investments will cut 1,300 jobs, or roughly 3% of its workforce, before the end of the year. The Boston-based brokerage firm will trim the ranks of both management positions and lower-level jobs, with more layoffs to coming in early 2009. (AP Photo/Lisa Poole)
GlaxoSmithKline ... British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline announced that it plans to trim the ranks of its sales force by 1,000 as part of a broad restructuring of its U.S. operations. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Circuit City Sto... Amid ongoing rumblings of a potential bankruptcy filing, electronics retailer Circuit City announced plans to close 155 U.S. stores—20% of its domestic footprint. The company said the move would cause it to lay off 17% of its workforce, or as many as 7,300 employees. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Motorola Inc. Motorola plans to lay off 3,000 workers by April 2009, with 2,000 of the cuts coming in the company's beleaguered cellphone division. These new cuts come just months after the company announced 2,600 layoffs earlier this year. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
American Express... As the crisis stiffens for credit card companies, American Express Co. announced its plans to cut 7,000 jobs—or 10 percent of its global work force—in hopes of slashing costs by $1.8 billion by 2009. (Reuters/PRNewsFoto)
Electronic Arts ... Electronic Arts posted weaker-than-expected results and announced the elimination of more positions. The videogame publisher will now shed 1,100 jobs -- or about 11 percent of its workforce -- more cutbacks than the 1,000 layoffs it had announced in December. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Whirlpool Corp. Whirlpool Corp. will cut 5,000 jobs by the end of 2009, citing the global credit crisis and continued expectations of reduced demand in the U.S. and Europe. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
General Motors C... GM plans to reduce expenses for its salaried workforce by 20%. The auto maker will lay off an undisclosed number of its 32,000 salaried staffers to achieve this goal. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
PepsiCo Inc. PepsiCo will cut 3,300 jobs, or nearly 2% of its workforce, a cost-cutting move that illustrates that fallout from the Wall Street crisis is reverberating to all sectors of the economy. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
Xerox Corp. Xerox plans to eliminate 3,000 jobs, or more than 5% of its workforce, over the next six months. (AP Photo/Douglas Healey)
Hewlett-Packard ... Nearly 25,000 people will be laid off by Hewlett-Packard as the company works to complete its integration of EDS. This staggering number of jobs is higher than industry experts originally expected from the merger. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Goldman Sachs Gr... Investment-bank Goldman Sachs announced that it plans to cut about 3,260 jobs -- 10% of its workforce -- illustrating that even the most successful of Wall Street's heavyweights aren't immune to the recent stock-market swoon. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Chrysler LLC Chrysler announced that it will eliminate as many as 1,825 jobs as the automaker looks for ways to hold onto as much cash as possible in the face of slumping sales and tight credit markets. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Merck & Co. Merck is eliminating 7,200 positions, or 12% of its workforce, over the next 3 years. The pharmaceutical company has seen revenue from several of its biggest sellers decline recently. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)
National City Co... Struggling regional bank National City announced plans to eliminate 4,000 jobs as the company looks for ways to cut costs and stay afloat amid the growing mortgage and credit crises. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
Yahoo Inc. Although Yahoo recently announced plans to lay off 1,500 workers, the company also just reported that it will invest $100 on a new data center in Nebraska that will employ 100. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
eBay Inc. Roughly 1,600 workers -- 1,000 company employees and 600 temporary staffers -- will lose their jobs at eBay as the company fights flagging growth at its flagship Internet auction site. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Starbucks Corp. Profit dropped 97 percent at Starbucks in the 4th quarter. The company announced earlier this year that it planned to lay off 1,000 employees at the management level and shut more than 600 underperforming stores, which could lead to as many as 12,000 additional layoffs. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)