Big companies such as IBM, Alcoa, H-P, should be ashamed of firing so many people and adding to the unemployment numbers while they are making millions, and the executives still receiving their big bonuses and perks for basically nothing. I couldn't sleep if I did that. They should make every effort to keep their people working while cutting frivilous expenses such as parties, first class flying here and there to take a customer out to dinner, etc. Give the economy a chance to bounce back. Let your employees keep paying taxes, and share, your wealth and good fortune.

I agree with hurtin bad.  My husband works for the Alcoa company and just found out yesterday that they will be "letting more people go" --  Union workers that is.... They found out that the supervisors that were supposed to be "let go" are staying, so they're letting more union employees go.  Isn't that the way big company is?  The little guy doesn't matter.......

HURTIN BAD SAYS IT ALL PLAIN AND CLEAR. HE IS 100% CORRECT.

Making profit = bad, no one should be able to make a profit in America.  All of the small businesses should also be forced to give up their profits.  SPREAD THE WEALTH. I love russia.

Why is it that people cant understand that companies layoff employees when there is no work for them.  If they all did what GM did (Pay employees to sit and wait for work) they would wind up like GM!  Would you hire a person to do your grass cutting in the middle of winter because he has no other Job??

Well said TBONE. I would like to add...blame the government...ask them for your bailout. Ask them to help small business. Ask them to help the consumer=customer to small business= customer to big business. With out all the small business...you have no big business. These big companys did what they must to do survive. It's a trickle down effect. If all the small businesses where helped, they would have money to support the big business. More small business , use more office supplies== business for HP. More PC's sold to small business==buisness for IBM.

More machine shops , machining parts from metal==business for Alcoa...or better yet...put money in the consumers pocket and tax him less so he can spend more=need for jobs to make products. See how it is all connected??

My husband and I met at work at Alcoa, ten years later he still works there, but it has been bought out by SAPA. Hopefully SAPA is not going to do this to its employees. It breaks my heart because these are the real people, we are the ones working for a living scraping by during the good times but still loving our lives. I wish it would all get better, but greed and all of the rest of the crap has taken over....

i work for alcoa as well, and we're all wondering what tomorrow and the day after will hold for us.  But what the author of this article didn't note or grasp is that alcoa is in a bad financial situation.  The LME for aluminum has lost more than half of its value since july, so all of our facilities that were making huge profits in july (thus that 470 million quarter) have been losing huge amounts of money when the LME fell to around $1400 a ton.  until metal prices rebound or at least move up to a level we can break even, layoffs will continue.  And i think the 4th quarter earnings will give an example of how quick things went bad and only touch the iceberg on how bad they can go.  Divesting our packaging division last year has made us a metals company again, and we're feeling the full effects of it right now whereas keeping the packaging, we might have buffered ourselves a little more.

Just because things were good in the last reported quarter, that definitely doesn't mean things will be good this reported quarter.  and to stay afloat, these layoffs need to happen.  I just hope i'm not one of them.

I currently work for alcoa and have for 11 yrs, one that good ole uncle al worries about is the bottom line.  As they continue to break records from previous quarters we as workers have been instructed that all domestic spending would stop immediately, but spending would increase internationally name the facility purchased in Russia.  Although, we stood firmly against this giant at the Cleveland works facililty,  they paid bosses from within the facility and other facilities upwards 99.00's per hour just to teach the unoin workers that alcoa will spend millions just to keep the workers who dare stand against them a valuable and undeniable lesson American Workers carry no significance when it comes to the bottom line.  So until someone corrects the current NAFTA agreement and we the people have some backing things will and are going to continue to get worse.  

NAFTA   WHAT A JOKE ///