The Timken Company (USA; NYSE: TKR) announced it will cut up to an additional 400 people from its salaried workforce globally.
From approximately 8,500 salaried workers, 400 translates to around 5%. This new group will be on top of several previous rounds of job cuts from other cost-control programs, and will be taken from all levels of the organization.
The company's Canton-area headquarters is expected to take the hardest hit, according to Timken spokeswoman Lorrie Crum.
In the end, Timken said it is targeting annual SG&A cost savings in the range of $30 million to $40 million from this latest initiative. Associated costs will be approximately $10 million to $15 million.
Cuts will start immediately and continue through third quarter. However, the company did not specify how many would be the result of attrition, early retirement, or reverting formerly hourly employees from salary back to hourly.
President and CEO, Jim Griffin, said: "We are taking actions to align our organization for effectiveness and to right-size our cost structure to increase our competitiveness in today's global markets. As we pursue long-term value creation for our stakeholders, we believe this reorganization will simplify our operating structure, improving our effectiveness in managing through these challenging economic times."
Timken pointed out that over the past 15 months it has lowered production and cut its manufacturing workforce by nearly 2,500. Working the facilities shorter hours and shorter weeks with longer scheduled shutdowns and enforced furloughs have also been components of the ongoing effort to, "right-size capacity to market needs."
Mr. Griffith went on to say: "We're balancing capacity through reduced labor and output. Our focus now is to align our administrative and sales functions to be more effective in today's challenging environment. As we operate with a leaner organization, we will continue to focus on improving profitability and cash flow as we strengthen the Timken brand across the globe."
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