The Boeing Co. will issue pink slips to about 100 workers in the Puget Sound region today as part of its previously announced workforce reduction plans. About 80 of those notices will go to commercial airplanes employees. Across all Boeing divisions, the company will hand out 600 notices to workers informing them that their jobs may end as soon as Sept. 18. Boeing plans to cut at least 10,000 jobs by the end of 2009, with at least 4,500 positions being eliminated at its commercial airplanes base in the Puget Sound area.
Former engineer guilty of espionage
A Chinese-born engineer was convicted Thursday of stealing trade secrets critical to the U.S. space program in the nation’s first economic espionage trial. A federal judge found former Boeing Co. engineer Dongfan “Greg” Chung guilty of six counts of economic espionage and other charges for hoarding 300,000 pages of sensitive documents in his home, including information about the U.S. space shuttle and a booster rocket. “The trust Boeing placed in Mr. Chung to safeguard its proprietary and trade secret information obviously meant very little to Mr. Chung,” U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote in his 31-page ruling. He said Chung’s allegiance was to China.
Chase earnings rise 36 percent
JPMorgan Chase &Co. posted a 36 percent jump in second-quarter profit Thursday, easily surpassing analysts’ expectations, as strength in investment banking offset higher credit losses. JPMorgan, the second big bank to report stronger earnings this week after Goldman Sachs Group Inc., earned $2.72 billion, up from $2 billion a year earlier. Revenues soared 39 percent to $25.62 billion. Results were driven by record investment banking fees and revenue in its bond business, much like Goldman Sachs. At JPMorgan’s investment bank, revenue jumped 33 percent to $7.3 billion and profits more than tripled to $1.5 billion. Those gains were partly offset by higher losses in consumer lending and credit cards.
Slow ad growth hampers Google
Google Inc.’s Internet ad sales grew at their slowest rate on record during the spring, forcing the online search leader to tighten its belt another notch to propel its second-quarter profit above analyst estimates. The performance — punctuated by revenue growth of just 3 percent — disappointed investors. The company’s shares fell more than 3 percent in extended trading Thursday after the results were released. Google is the most profitable company on the Internet, thanks to its dominance of the online advertising market. That means its lackluster revenue growth could foreshadow even more significant sluggishness among other Internet companies that rely on advertising and e-commerce.
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