A manufacturing company now announces painful layoffs in Kentucky, though it is currently unknown how many workers will be affected.
Louisville-based GE Appliances will lay off 4% of its salaried global workforce, the company announced to employees Thursday.
In Louisville, where the company is headquartered, salaried workers account for roughly 2,700 jobs at GE Appliance Park.
Julie Wood, a GE Appliances spokesperson, confirmed the global layoffs to The Courier Journal.
“Unfortunately, the cost-saving actions we have taken are not enough to offset the pressures,” Wood said.
“After exhausting all avenues, we made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our global salaried workforce by 4%.”
Wood said the appliance industry, as a whole, has seen a downward trend citing challenges consumers face.
With interest rates remaining high, making it challenging for some to enter the housing market, and inflation leading consumers to be more conservative with large purchases, the company has seen less demand for appliances.
Layoffs were the “last thing we want to do,” Wood said, sharing that the company has tried to lower its operating costs by reducing discretionary spending and making processes more efficient.
Despite some employees being laid off today, Wood said the company will “support our employees through this transition.”
Workers who have lost their jobs will receive “30-day notice of separation, plus up to six months of severance dependent on years of employment, continued medical coverage for six months, and professional outplacement support.”
These layoffs are the second time in two years GE Appliances has reduced its global workforce, seeing a 5% reduction in 2022, The Courier Journal previously reported.
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Other Economy News Today
Applications for unemployment benefits now surge to new highs, a sign that the white-hot labor market is starting to cool off.
First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 231,000, the highest level since August, per CNN.
Thursday’s data also showed that the number of continuing claims, or applications from people who have filed for unemployment for at least one week, was 1.78 million.
That’s an increase of 17,000 from the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The latest numbers come less than a week after the monthly jobs report showed the US economy added just 175,000 positions in April, less than economists expected and a steep drop-off from prior months.
US employers have now added an average of 245,500 jobs per month, versus 2023’s 251,000-per-month average.
Still, hiring remains strong. Although the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% last month, it’s the 27th consecutive month that the jobless rate has held under 4%, matching a streak last seen in the late 1960s.
Weekly jobless claims data tends to be volatile but, while one week’s worth of data “does not a trend make,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds.
“We can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”
“Company layoffs are picking up, hinting at caution on the part of companies as they weigh the outlook for the second half of the year,” he wrote in a note Thursday.
The Federal Reserve has been battling inflation by raising its key lending rate in the hopes of slowing the economy.
While the labor market has so far resisted those efforts, remaining white hot for the past 18 months despite 11 rate hikes from the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that demand has “cooled from its extremely high level of a couple of years ago.”
Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Economics said in a note Thursday: “We’d need to see at least a month of elevated readings to convince us that the trend really has turned.”
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Also Read: A Giant Company Now Announces Unexpected Layoffs in Virginia
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