– Caterpillar Inc announced it would cut nearly 20,000 jobs and warned of a tough year ahead as a downturn that began in the United States metastasized into a full-blown global recession, gutting orders for earth-moving equipment.
The world’s largest maker of construction and mining machines, which also reported lower-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, said on Monday it was laying off 17,000 workers, and buying out 2,500 others, to reduce costs in the face of what it predicted would be the weakest year since the end of World War Two…………
………The company also said it was freezing salaries of most employees, significantly reducing the total compensation of executives and senior managers, putting several facilities on shortened workweeks, and subjecting thousands of employees to temporary layoffs.
