layoffs and downsizing

Corporate executives stick to a script when pulling the layoff lever: Cite the tough economic landscape, promise that employees will remain the firm's most valued asset, insist that there was no other option to protect the company's future. Here's why you shouldn't buy what corporate America's selling when it comes to life-ruining layoffs.

Lots of companies are laying off workers, trying to cut costs and improve their profit margins. But how should investors view the news of job cuts at a company? As a sign of deep trouble and worse to come, or as proof of committed management and better times ahead? Here's how to read the pink slips.

Several major corporations have been announcing layoffs in recent weeks, despite their fattening coffers. What accounts for all the pink slips? Consumers don't like them, nor do investors -- at least, not the farsighted ones. Here are the real reasons behind these puzzling, and troubling, terminations.

Companies that develop medicines have been bleeding jobs in the last few months, with three -- Biogen Idec, Charles River Laboratories and NicOx -- announcing about 1,000 new workforce cuts this week. When will the bleeding stop?

Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) said Friday it plans to lay off 1,700 workers at its U.S. pharmaceutical operations, which amounts to about 25% of its U.S. workforce. The cutbacks are part of an ongoing restructuring to streamline its business amid a "challenging health care marketplace," the company said in...

Bank of America (BAC) is reportedly laying off as many as 400 people as revenue from trading and advising clients falls. Bank of America, the country's largest bank by assets, is laying off people ranging from junior analysts to managing directors, Bloomberg News said without naming its sources....

CEOs who cut the most jobs during the recession earned an average of 42% more than their S&P 500 peers, according to a study by the Institute for Policy Studies. Top execs at the 50 firms that laid off the most workers since the economic crisis began averaged nearly $12 million in 2009.