The Star Online: Business
The Star Online: Business |
- Deutsche Bank to start job cuts in Germany: paper
- Export surge could help U.S. add 5 million factory jobs by 2020: study
- Japan firms say China protests affect business plans - poll
| Deutsche Bank to start job cuts in Germany: paper Posted: 20 Sep 2012 06:49 PM PDT FRANKFURT: Thousands of jobs may go at Deutsche Bank AG in Germany, with a first round of losses at its base in Frankfurt and its Postbank unit in Bonn, a German newspaper reported on Friday. Back-office services from its retail banking brands that are currently carried out by a variety of subsidiaries will in future be done by workers at one new unit under a new structure, and all IT systems will be transferred to one platform, potentially eliminating thousands of jobs, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported. In a first wave, 543 jobs will be scrapped in Bonn and Frankfurt, the paper said, citing an internal document, with cuts in the finance, risk, controlling, treasury, HR, economic analysis and legal departments. Around 80 percent of the 543 jobs cut will be in Bonn, the paper added. Deutsche had announced 1,900 job cuts in July, but said they would come mostly outside of Germany. The bank's chief executives said last Tuesday, however, they would axe more jobs than that, along with cutting bonuses and selling assets to meet tougher capital rules. Deutsche Bank was not immediately available for comment. The paper cited a Deutsche Bank spokesman as saying no job cuts were planned beyond those already agreed with labor representatives. - Reuters |
| Export surge could help U.S. add 5 million factory jobs by 2020: study Posted: 20 Sep 2012 06:46 PM PDT BOSTON: Rising U.S. factory productivity, spurred by falling natural gas prices, could help the nation boost exports of products such as locomotives and factory machinery and add as many as 5 million manufacturing jobs by the decade's end, a new analysis found. High worker productivity and low energy prices driven by a surge in shale gas production will give the United States a cost advantage in exports against Western European rivals and Japan in the coming years, according to a Boston Consulting Group report set for release on Friday. By 2015, those factors will make average manufacturing costs in the United States lower by 15 percent than in Germany and France, 8 percent than in the United Kingdom and 21 percent than in Japan, the study projects. Factories' costs in China will remain 7 percent cheaper than those in the United States, however. The competitive gap in some ways reflects the open U.S. labor market, where companies can quickly add or cut workers to meet changes in demand, said Hal Sirkin, a senior partner at the BCG consultancy and author of the report. "In Europe and Japan, it's relatively hard to lay people off, and because of that you have employees for a long period of time that you may not be able to use," Sirkin said. "In the United States, there's much more flexibility." Besides the ease of adding or firing workers, lower wages and Americans' readiness to move for work will make U.S. factory labor costs 20 percent to 45 percent lower than prevailing costs in Western Europe and Japan by 2015, the study found. BCG forecast that a glut of natural gas production in the United States would keep the nation's prices of the fuel 50 percent to 70 percent below those in Europe and Japan, as well as hold down electricity costs. BEYOND ONSHORING U.S. factory employment has grown by about 3.6 percent to roughly 12 million people from a 2010 post-recession low, a trend that could accelerate as the United States becomes a more competitive exporter, BCG said. The increase in part reflects a realization by manufacturers that rising shipping costs and wage inflation in China and other countries have made it cheaper to make products at home. The recent growth in U.S. factory employment follows a drop of about 40 percent over three decades as many businesses concluded that high wages made the country too costly for manufacturing and economists predicted that Americans would turn away from assembly jobs in favor of work in the service sector. Over the past year, though, major U.S. exporters General Electric Co and Caterpillar Inc have both added U.S. factory jobs. The study also noted that foreign-owned companies including Japan's Toyota Motor Co <7203.T> and Germany's Siemens AG were also making products in the United States and exporting them to other countries. BCG said the United States could boost its exports by about $90 billion by the end of the decade by winning orders currently filled by Western European and Japanese factories. Total U.S. exports came to $1.48 trillion in 2011, according to the Census Bureau. Based on the export forecast and current worker productivity figures, BCG projects that U.S. manufacturers could add 2.5 million to 5 million jobs by 2020. The biggest gains could come in the industrial machinery, transportation and chemicals sectors -- slices of manufacturing that are both highly energy-intensive and automated, requiring fewer workers, BCG said. One wild card is the euro currency, which fell fairly steadily in value from mid-2011 through July as the region's policymakers struggled with a debt crisis. This slide made European factories relatively more competitive than their U.S. rivals. That advantage has begun to fade over the past two months, with the euro trading at $1.29 on Thursday, up about 7.5 percent from its July 24 low. Sirkin said little short of an outright collapse in the euro would change BCG's analysis. "Obviously currency matters," Sirkin said, "but over the range that the euro's been over the last reasonable period of time, the fundamentals don't change." - Reuters |
| Japan firms say China protests affect business plans - poll Posted: 20 Sep 2012 06:45 PM PDT TOKYO: About 41 percent of Japanese firms see friction with China affecting their business plans, with some considering pulling out of the country and shifting operations elsewhere, a Reuters poll showed, amid growing tensions sparked by a territorial dispute. However, only a fraction of firms said improving relations with Asia should be at the top of the agenda for the next government, to be formed after general elections that must be held by around August 2013. The poll comes as relations between Asia's two biggest economies have hit their lowest point in decades over a dispute centred on an uninhabited group of islands in the East China Sea -- known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Street protests in China have forced some Japanese firms to suspend operations in that country, and the share prices of Japanese firms with exposure to China have tumbled. But the poll of 400 large and medium-sized firms, of which roughly 260 responded between August 31 and September 14, was taken before the worst of the protests, which damaged factories, restaurants and retail stores. Firms in sectors such as wholesale, transport equipment and electric machinery were among those expecting the most fallout from worsening relations with China and other parts of Asia. Some of the firms which see friction with China affecting business plans have suffered not only from rowdy protests involving damage and consumer strikes, but other problems as well. "We were stranded at customs there even as we followed proper procedures for exporting parts," said one machinery firm. A transport machinery company complained that it was excluded from bidding in China. "We need to consider closing our base in China and withdrawing our personnel," said one metal products company. Others voiced caution about investing in China, while considering putting off plans to make inroads into Chinese markets or seeking alternate sites. China, the world's second-largest economy, and Japan, the third-largest, have total two-way trade of around $345 billion (212 billion pounds), but some experts believe anti-Japan sentiment could prompt firms to rethink investments in China in the longer term. In the Reuters poll, 56 percent of firms urged the next Japanese government to put the utmost priority on steps to prop up the economy and stabilise currency rates, while only 2 percent cited smoother diplomatic relations with Asia. With the dollar hovering around 78 yen, not far from a record low of 75.31 yen hit last October when Japanese authorities intervened heavily to stem their currency's gains, about one-third or respondents sought yen-selling intervention to help safeguard the export-reliant economy. On the government's contentious plan to double the sales tax to 10 percent by 2015, 45 percent said it should be implemented as planned while 40 percent said the state of the economy at the time should be considered before making a final decision. Only 10 percent called for putting off the sales tax rise, in stark contrast with the many lawmakers who are wary of a voter backlash over the tax increase. - Reuters |
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