Qantas chief Alan Joyce cuts 5000 jobs

Qantas will axe 5000 jobs, ditch unprofitable routes and retire ageing gas-guzzling planes, in the biggest shake up of its operations since it was floated.

Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services. It is the second oldest Airline in the World, and has been flying passengers since 1920.

JPMorgan cutting 8,000 jobs, slimming branches

In an effort to cut costs, the country's largest bank by assets said Tuesday that it plans to slash 8,000 jobs in its consumer and community banking division this year.

That represents a projected 20% reduction in total branch staff from 2011 to 2015. And it comes on top of 7,000 job losses at the branch level over the past two years, according to JPMorgan.

On the upside, the bank is adding 3,000 jobs in other parts of the firm, so the overall job cuts will only total 5,000, a JPMorgan spokeswoman told CNNMoney.

The plan, revealed at the company's investor day conference, is part of a branch overhaul that the bank claims will make it more efficient by utilizing technology for routine banking transactions. JPMorgan said the cuts are in response to growing "customer self service trends."

The cuts at JPMorgan are also partly driven by a drop-off in mortgage financing. Of the 8,000 cuts, the majority will come from the mortgage banking side. While historically low mortgage rates led to a surge in home refinancings in recent years, the bank said in its fourth quarter earnings report that steadily rising interest rates have slowed that trend.

Still, the bank's branch network is an important line of business for JPMorgan, which has added more branches in recent years and doesn't expect a significant change in branch count anytime soon.

IBM to cut 10,000 to 15,000 workers

IBM, in the midst of its massive transformation from a hardware-and-software-and-services company to a cloud-and-services company, is cutting jobs worldwide. The goal, besides remaking the 103-year-old tech giant into a modern IT leader that can take on Amazon Web Services and a flock of younger tech vendors, is to deliver on the promise to deliver $20 (non-GAAP) earnings per share by the end of 2015. Accomplishing that goal would be quite the feat, given the past few quarters of disappointing performance.

For IBM’s fourth quarter ending December 31, earnings — excluding some items — hit $6.13 per share, exceeding estimates of $6.00, according to Bloomberg. The trouble lay in revenue, which dipped for the seventh consecutive quarter — to $27.7 billion, missing estimates of $28.3 billion.

As for the job cuts, it’s not as if IBM didn’t warn us. On last month’s Q4 earnings call, CFO Martin Shroeter said IBM had reserved $1 billion to cover workforce reductions. Estimating that each person laid off costs IBM about $70,000, Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi told USA Today the company could cut 10,000 to 15,000 workers out of a total headcount of about 400,000.

Lee Conrad, a  former IBMer who is now the national coordinator of Alliance@IBM, a watchdog group affiliated with a union of IBM workers, said he is hearing of job cuts in several countries, the largest seemingly in India. “Reports from angry IBM India workers started flooding into the Alliance website 3 days ago,” he said via email on Thursday. “Hardest hit was the Systems Technology Group. Today we are hearing of job cuts in IBM India Software Group.”

The Alliance’s latest, admittedly incomplete list includes 1,500 jobs cut in Brazil, 600 in Argentina, 480 in France, 430 in Italy, 240 in the Netherlands and 105 in Belgium. Cuts in European countries must be negotiated, so the numbers could change, Conrad said.

Earlier this month, the company announced the sale of its X86 server business to Lenovo, and some of the latest job cuts in India and elsewhere relate to that move. The company is also reportedly looking to sell off its SDN and chip business.

“It’s important to look at what IBM is doing holistically. It’s jettisoning anything that’s not cloud or Internet of Things,”  said analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. And yes, he acknowledged, the company needs to hit that magical $20 EPS number as well.

Amazon to hire 2,500 across U.S.

• Hiring at five shipment centers
• Company has about 117,000 full- and part-time employees

SEATTLE — Amazon says it is hiring more than 2,500 full-time workers at its order fulfillment centers around the U.S.

Amazon.com Inc. plans to announce Wednesday that the jobs are available in Chester, Va., and Petersburg, Va.; Coffeyville, Kan.; Columbia, S.C.; Dupont, Wash.; Murfreesboro, Tenn.

The world's largest online retailer says last year it hired more than 20,000 people at its fulfillment centers, with more than half starting out as seasonal workers. Amazon says the median income for people working at its order-fulfillment facilities is higher than at traditional retailers.

The Seattle-based company had 117,300 full-time and part-time employees at the end of 2013, according to a regulatory filing.

Sun Products to close Baltimore plant, lay off 300 employees

BALTIMORE - Sun Products Corp., which manufactures and markets laundry and household care products, will close its Baltimore plant and lay off 300 employees in the process.

The plant, located on Holabird Ave. will close by June and the employees who work at the facility will receive transition assistance packages including severance pay as well as outplacement support in seeking new jobs.

In a news release, a company spokesperson said Sun Products is seeking “to align production with the plants that are geographically positioned to best serve our customers with excellence and at the lowest total delivered cost.”

“At the same time, volume and mix have been changing in the laundry category, such that we can no longer produce product competitively at our Baltimore plant,” the statement continued. “Over the next few months we will transfer production from Baltimore to our Bowling Green, Kentucky manufacturing plant.

“This decision is a result of changing business needs and is not a reflection of the Baltimore community or our dedicated workforce. We value their hard work over the years, and we are committed to supporting them through a smooth transition.”

Illinois employers warn state of nearly 550 job cuts

Five companies may shed a combined 546 jobs in Illinois in coming months, according to the state's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act report for January.

That figure does not include job cuts will occur due to the merger of Naperville-based OfficeMax Inc. and Office Depot Inc., based in Boca Raton, Fla. OfficeMax was named in the report but did not provide a job estimate. A spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.

Other cuts:

• Specialty Foods Group Inc., a meat wholesaler in Chicago that makes Nathan's Famous hotdogs and other products, will lay off 250 workers. No reason was provided and a company executive did not immediately return a call for comment.

• Harmony Health Plan of Illinois, a Chicago-based health maintenance organization, will eliminate 105 jobs. No reason was provided and a company executive did not immediately return a call for comment.

• J.C. Penney Co. will shed 127 jobs when it shutters its store in west suburban Bloomingdale in May. The closure is one of 33 underperforming stores Penney will shut down nationally as the department store company attempts a turnaround.

• Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope, a company in west suburban Bensenville that manufactures windows, doors, skylights and architectural glass, will lay off 64 workers as it closes its facility.