Bank Of America Sending 35,000 Packing, Bad News For Merrill Workers

In July Bank of America announced that they would be slashing CountryWide staff down to 7,500 from a high of 50,600 in 2007. That’s 85%. If past deeds is a prediction of future action then BofA will be shrinking Merrill significantly. Some layoffs have already occurred but my guess would be that three out of five Merrill employees will be pink-slipped out. That would account for the 35,000 announced cuts.

If you have any specifics please post them in our comment section.

From Dealbreaker.com: “Bank of America is said to be planning on canning half of its New York equity trading desk in the next 2-4 weeks.”

Sony Closing Last TV Manufacturing Plant In U.S.

From NETWORKWORLD: “Sony has named its Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, plant as the second factory of a planned 5 or 6 that will be shut down as part of a global restructuring. The factory is Sony's last remaining TV manufacturing facility in the U.S. and the closure will see 560 people lose their jobs.”

The plant which manufactures 46” and 52” LCD TVs will stop production in February and the facility will be completely shuttered in March 2010 when Sony also closes their east-cost logistics operations. Sony will now manufacture these TVs in Baja, Mexico.

Westmoreland County web site post this in October: “The park, located in East Huntingdon and Hempfield Townships, further bolsters Westmoreland County’s major employment zone surrounding the Sony Technology Center.”

Here is an interesting comment on MSN QnA Beta by toadhead: “There are no TV currently manufactured in the USA."

"The last one I new of were Phillips not a US company but they had a manufacturing plant in Missouri . As I understand it Wal-Mart said they would not sell there equipment, essentially unless they moved manufacturing to China so they would be cheaper and contain more lead, so they did. That was a few years ago all the other manufactures of TV have also moved over seas.”