John Wolz

�I�ve never seen it turn around so fast,� fastener industry recruiter Jodi Stein described a change in the supply and demand ratio of job candidates and vacancies.
�The brakes went on at the first of the year,� sending a �tremendous influx of candidates through our doors,� the vice president of Olympia Fields, IL-based Tom McCall Executive Search observed. �Usually we see these things coming.�
Mark Zandi, chief economist for Economy.com noted that during the last recession, from mid-1990 to March 1991, layoffs didn�t surge dramatically until a year after the downturn started. Computers are providing daily and even hourly information on demand, allowing for quicker staffing decisions, Zandi explained.
Layoffs in the U.S. totaled only 45,000 in December. January jumped to 200,000.
For the past eight years Stein�s work was focused primarily on finding candidates for job openings. Suddenly layoffs have her busy trying to place the unemployed.
The jobs being lost are the ones expected to go in a recession: �The heavyweight jobs get laid off first. We are seeing the mid- to senior- level candidates and sales and marketing management candidates come in.� Stein observed.
The market isn�t down in all sectors. While Detroit is the weakest because of automotive production cutbacks, �aerospace is coming back, and we are seeing that in Texas and California.�
Engineers with �very specific, very technical backgrounds� remain in demand, Stein added. Non-automotive outside and inside sales positions � especially technical and engineering sales � are still readily available.
Stein expressed surprise that so many production people are being laid off after years of shortages. She predicted fastener manufacturers �are going to be clamoring to get them back within months.�
Current indications are that it will be a �bumpy first couple months� of 2001 before hiring picks up again, Stein finds.

� Textron Inc., which posted a fourth quarter 2000 loss, plans to cut more than 3,600 jobs, or 5% of its global workforce, as part of a broad restructuring covering the company�s fastening, industrial and automotive divisions.
About 20 manufacturing sites worldwide will be closed as a result of declining sales in some businesses. The company lost $218 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $201 million in the same period in 1999. Management expects the job cuts and other restructuring activities to save more than $100 million annually, starting in 2002.
�We need every dime we can get here,� CEO Lewis Campbell told analysts during a conference call.

� Alcoa, which owns Huck Fasteners, is stressing production efficiencies, acquisitions and getting suppliers and customers to adopt some of the measures Alcoa has used to cut costs, as part of CEO Alain Belda�s plans to save $1 billion.
�This is not a people-reduction initiative,� Belda said.
One month after achieving a $1.1 billion cost reduction goal, Alcoa CEO Alain Belda told analysts the company would generate another $1 billion in efficiencies over the next three years.
About $250 million of the savings are expected to come from last year�s acquisitions of Reynolds Metals and Cordant Technologies � which includes Huck Fasteners. Belda said $175 million of the estimated $425 million in savings from those purchases have already been achieved.
The rest will come through production efficiencies, acquisitions and getting suppliers and customers to adopt some of measures Alcoa has used to cut costs and reduce waste.

� General Electric Co. said Thursday it is moving ahead with a plan to cut tens of thousands of jobs but denied a published report that as many as 75,000 workers will get pink slips after the company�s pending $45 billion acquisition of Honeywell International Inc. closes.
Honeywell is the parent company of aerospace fastener distributors TriStar Aerospace and Banner Aerospace.
Analysts estimate that the Fairfield, Conn., company will cut 20,000 to 30,000 jobs in relation to its Honeywell acquisition, plus an additional 20,000-plus jobs in other areas of the sprawling company.
But these totals are far fewer than those cited in a Business Week magazine article.
Citing anonymous sources, the magazine tagged the layoffs to CEO Jack Welch and said he intended to eliminate at least 75,000 jobs, or about 15% of the combined companies� workforce.
Honeywell spokesman Gary Sheffer said the company has yet to complete its consolidation planning and so any guess as to how many jobs will eventually be cut from the merger �would be wildly premature.�
Consolidating the two industrial giants� administrative operations, for example, is expected to make thousands of backoffice jobs redundant. GE has indicated it separately expects to eliminate about 11,000 current administrative jobs by installing high-tech systems.

� Black & Decker, parent company of Emhart Fastening Teknologies, expects its restructuring to eliminate about 400 positions in Europe and the U.S., and anticipates about $20 million in savings in 2002. \