Berkshire Eliminates 21,000 Jobs amid Slump
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reported 21,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2008 amid a slump at the firm's manufacturing and retail units
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linkedin connections By Andrew Frye and Peter Eichenbaum

(Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) reported 21,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2008 amid a slump at the firm's manufacturing and retail units.

Berkshire and its subsidiaries have about 225,000 workers, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said this week in regulatory filings. That's 8.6 percent lower than the 246,083 disclosed in the 2008 annual report. Berkshire provided the jobs information in a document tied to its planned $26 billion takeover of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. (BNI) Buffett didn't reply to a request, left with an assistant, for comment on the cuts.

Buffett, Berkshire's chief executive officer, oversees a collection of more than 70 subsidiaries that sell products including Geico car insurance, Fruit of the Loom T-shirts and Dairy Queen ice cream. Profit at the firm's manufacturing, service and retail businesses plunged by more than half in the first nine months of the year, and Buffett replaced the CEOs of two operating units whose sales suffered in the recession.

"There's a lot of businesses that have been struggling," said Paul Howard, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott LLC's Langen McAlenney division in Hartford, Connecticut. "I gotta believe all his managers are on their toes trying to figure out what to do."

David Sokol has announced about 800 job cuts at NetJets since taking the helm at the luxury air travel unit in August. Sokol, who also heads Berkshire's energy business, was installed by Buffett after NetJets founder Richard Santulli posted about $349 million in first-half losses and left the company. Buffett replaced Marvin Beasley in April as CEO of Berkshire's Helzberg Diamond Shops.

Good Times, Bad Times
"When times are good, you're going to have more people employed than when times are bad," Buffett, 79, said this month in a video address to the 37,000 railroad employees that Berkshire will take on next year with the completion of the Burlington Northern takeover.

Fruit of the Loom announced in March it would lay off 3,000 textile workers in El Salvador because of excess inventory, La Prensa Grafica reported, citing Jose Antonio Escobar, president of Camara de la Industria Textil y de la Confeccion de El Salvador. The newspaper reported on Dec. 3 that the company planned to hire back 1,000 workers.