Economic Pain Spreads to Industrial Icons

Several bellwethers of U.S. industrial activity -- from chemical companies to the makers of basic consumer goods -- announced new layoffs and factory closings yesterday as they prepared for a prolonged economic downturn.

Following close behind last week's dismal jobs report, a wide variety of companies unveiled new retrenchment plans, suggesting the slowdown that started in the financial and housing sectors was rippling through manufacturing. The companies being hurt extended far beyond retailers most sensitive to consumer spending to the makers of industrial materials and equipment.

Economists said the announcements added new urgency to discussions about federal stimulus measures, and raise questions about whether the type of large stimulus plan President-elect Barack Obama endorsed last weekend would be big or fast enough.

Dow Chemical announced yesterday that it would shut down 20 plants; temporarily idle 180 others; cut 6,000 contractors from its payroll; and lay off 5,000 of its own employees, equal to 11 percent of its global workforce. Dow Chemical's chief executive Andrew N. Liveris said in a statement that "the current world economy has deteriorated sharply, and we must adjust ourselves to the severity of this downturn."

3M, maker of products ranging from Post-it notes and Scotch tape to industrial sanding materials, said it would postpone pay increases, cut 500 workers worldwide and further trim costs in the face of what it called a "rapid volume slowdown" in November and the prospect of a weak economy for all of 2009.

The announcements suggest that more and more companies are expecting the recession to last longer than recent downturns, when the economy rebounded quickly from temporary setbacks.

"Some are expecting a 'V'-shaped recovery -- we are not," the company said in a presentation to analysts yesterday.

Anheuser-Busch InBev expects that people will have less money to drown their sorrows. The beermaker said yesterday that it would cut 1,400 U.S. jobs.

"We haven't seen all the pain yet," said Tobias M. Levkovich, chief equity strategist for Citigroup. "Financial conditions lead to real economic conditions." He said job trends could trail financial markets by as much as nine months, suggesting that employment weakness could continue through most of next year, at least.

"It's almost guaranteed that the unemployment rate will be up in the 8 to 9 percent rate by the end of next year," said Barry P. Bosworth, an economist at the Brookings Institution. "This is not an inventory cycle where it runs its course. This is a longer-term wealth shock, and the question is: How big is the effect of that on the economy?"

He called last week's Labor Department report on the jobs market "truly alarming" and said yesterday's layoff announcements were "not the industries you would expect to be affected by a consumption slump or slowdown in retail sales."

While Obama and leading congressional Democrats have talked about stimulus measures that would be "timely, temporary and targeted," Bosworth said that longer-term spending measures would still be needed later because the slowdown could last as long as five years.