GE's annual report shows the industrial and financial heavyweight reduced its overall employee head count by about 19,000 jobs to 304,000 workers. It's the second year in a row that jobs have fallen at one of the world's largest companies after several years of job growth earlier in the decade.
Excluding 16,000 jobs that came on the company's rolls last year when it took a majority stake in a Central American bank, GE's work force fell by 35,000. That was much larger than the 4,000 drop in jobs in 2008, the year that GE first began to feel the effects of the global downturn.
Worst hit was the conglomerate's GE Capital lending unit, which saw profits crumble last year as credit dried up and its losses on loans gone bad soared in areas like commercial real estate and credit cards. GE Capital shed 25 percent of its work force to finish 2009 at about 55,000 employees, part of a company plan to significantly shrink the size of the division.
GE spokeswoman Anne Eisele said layoffs accounted for less than half of the change. Many jobs were left vacant after retirements or voluntary separations. She also noted job losses were smaller than at other industrial and financial companies.
Last year was one of the worst in GE's 117-year history.
It struggled mightily to stabilize GE Capital and keep profits up at its industrial units that make jet engines, power plant turbines and dishwashers.
