PPL to cut 200 from U.S. work force

PPL Corp. will slice 200 management and staff positions from its U.S. operations, about half in the Allentown area, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

[bob]

not enough profits, ehh

[MonkeyMomma]

Another sad sign of the times. Whatever you think of PP&L's prices, it's always a bummer to see good jobs gone. Downtown A-town doesn't need to lose ANY of its white collar force, that's for sure.

[ashes]

A few weeks from now the C.E.O will get either a bonus or a raise in pay, probably a few million.

[Sound Reasoning]

PPL has no financial need to layoff anyone.

This is just a well planned ploy to "look poor" to the Public Utility Commission, after years of handing over large bonuses to James H. Miller, et al.

I sure hope that our PUC, and reps in Harrisburg, aren't stupid enough to fall for this.

[Sparky]

I wish the best for all at PPL (PP&L)now and in the future.

[minesweep]

bob wrote:

not enough profits, ehh

930 million is a lot of money. But, when taken in the context of 374.39 million shares of common stock outstanding it’s not that much ($2.48/sh.). Shareholders take on an inordinate amount of risk when they invest their money in a company. Perhaps you heard of the phrase “risk/reward ratio”. If no one took on that risk and instead invested all of their money in CD’s at a bank where would this country be today without that investment capital? You get paid to take risk (or sometimes not).

[minesweep]

Sound Reasoning wrote:

PPL has no financial need to layoff anyone.

Let me get this straight. You’re saying that PPL should keep an extra 200 employees on the payroll even though can operate the company efficiently with just 3,100 management employees. The shareholders expect the CEO to operate the company in a fiscally responsible manner.

[Wake up]

minesweep wrote:

<quoted text>
Let me get this straight. You’re saying that PPL should keep an extra 200 employees on the payroll even though can operate the company efficiently with just 3,100 management employees. The shareholders expect the CEO to operate the company in a fiscally responsible manner.

As every other poorly run American company, they are firing workers and leaving the work to others who are already swamped from the last cutbacks. It's a utility! The customers are captives. What are they not using electricity any more? Bunk. 200 people all are getting hefty severence packages that will be regular salary for a period of time without working. Who's dumb enough to fall for it, shareholders, PUC or wall street?

[rate payer]

bob wrote:

not enough profits, ehh

never enough! They made millions in 2007 and dropped to half of that in 2008. Can profits really double every single year? Mine don't!

[Burned]

Wake up wrote:

<quoted text>
... 200 people all are getting hefty severence packages that will be regular salary for a period of time without working....

I was one of the 200 and I didn't get a hefty severence. All I got was one week pay for every year I slaved at PPL. It stinks! Where is a 50 something man going to find a job in this economy. I need to sell my house and go on unemployment and work hopefully find a minimum wage service job now. Not what I was planning to do in my 50s.

[minesweep]

Burned wrote:

<quoted text>
I was one of the 200 and I didn't get a hefty severence. All I got was one week pay for every year I slaved at PPL. It stinks! Where is a 50 something man going to find a job in this economy. I need to sell my house and go on unemployment and work hopefully find a minimum wage service job now. Not what I was planning to do in my 50s.

And you earned every penny of that severance pay.

[hammer]

It's easy to see that minesweep, is all for OVERPAID JIM MILLER and the rest of the big shots at the top.Why do they always cut from the bottom up, and never the top down?

[Joe Blow]

They could have saved at least 100 of these laid-off employees if they had just laid off Jim Miller instead.

[minesweep]

Wake up wrote:

<quoted text>
As every other poorly run American company, they are firing workers and leaving the work to others who are already swamped from the last cutbacks. It's a utility! The customers are captives. What are they not using electricity any more? Bunk. 200 people all are getting hefty severence packages that will be regular salary for a period of time without working. Who's dumb enough to fall for it, shareholders, PUC or wall street?

First off, PPL is not a poorly run electric company. Second, you have a choice to shop for an alternate electricity supplier The problem is that customers currently have few competitive options because of the rate cap that was set back in the 1990’s still exists at PPL and a few other companies.

“State law requires PPL Electric Utilities, which does not own power plants and does not generate electricity, to buy power in the competitive market for its customers who do not select an electricity provider. The cost of this electricity supply is passed directly to customers without profit.”

”Pennsylvania consumers have the option to shop for electricity supply as an alternative to the default service prices offered by PPL Electric Utilities.”

”Customers of PPL Electric Utilities have few competitive options for electricity supply today because the company's generation charge for default service remains under a rate cap that was established in the 1990s.”

“Electricity suppliers have had to deal with increasing market prices for electricity in the last decade, and so have been unable to offer prices that can compete with PPL Electric Utilities' capped below-market rates, which will remain in effect through the end of 2009.”

“Rate caps already have ended for six electric utilities in Pennsylvania, and competition is growing in those areas. For example, according to the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate, more than 20 percent of Duquesne Light's customers in the Pittsburgh area have chosen other electricity suppliers.”

“The increase in costs to generate electricity is driven largely by higher costs for the fuels used to make electricity - coal, natural gas, oil and uranium - and because demand for electricity is rising faster than new supply is being built. Generators also are facing higher costs for materials and equipment and stricter environmental regulations.”

"Customers can offset some of the increase they may face in 2010 by taking steps to become more energy-efficient," said David G. DeCampli, president of PPL Electric Utilities. DeCampli said the federal government estimates that typical homeowners can save as much as 30 percent on their energy bills by making energy-efficient improvements in their homes.”

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/ppl-e...

http://www.oca.state.pa.us/Industry/Electric/...

[mine detector]

Hey Einstien, at ppl if you are not in the union you are considered mangement. That includes engineers, planners, trainers and people involved in the real time monitoring and operation of the electric system. So you now have less people operating the system, lees people supervising the people in the field. They also enacted a new policy of straigth time for overtime. So next time the power goes out and you are sitting in the dark, the general attitude from ppl will be they will get to it when they get to it, providing they are even aware of the outage. if you don't like it tough luck.

[hammer]

Yep: MINESWEEP IS MANAGEMENT; Only a person in upper management with a secure job would come up with a statement like that.

[Kim]

Less people supervising the people in the field? They haven't laid off any foremans which supervise the workers in the field. The power outage statement by "mine detecter" is not true, a few managers in customer service were laid off where the ratio was around 4 managers to 1 union worker. This will not hurt customer service. Trucks now have computers on them which helps to improve response time on outages.
As if they need a real estate department, more waste. When you want to purchase or sell property use an outside agent. More dead weight!

[Just Axed by PPL]

By the name of the poster, you can see that I just go eliminated by PPL.

While I think they should have asked for volunteers to achieve the desired headcount cuts, and then prioritized who among the volunteer was more essential, the concept of their cutting back was totally justifiable.

A reasonable analysis of PPL's organizational structure for all its businesses is that the company has been overstaffed at most of its functions, and that painful restructuring had to occur.

It should be noted that PPL's so called bad year in 2008 is bad only in relation to the excellent years it enjoyed in the recent past.

The returns on the investment, overall, in 2008 were good except when compared to the superior returns of recent years.

In the real world, when a company is flying high, it must continue to fly high, or its stock price will tank. You cannot be "excellent" and then fall to "pretty good". The repercussions of that fall are profound.

PPL had to do something to get back to excellent results, even though pretty good sounds good to most people.

[MonkeyMomma]

Burned wrote:

<quoted text>
I was one of the 200 and I didn't get a hefty severence. All I got was one week pay for every year I slaved at PPL. It stinks! Where is a 50 something man going to find a job in this economy. I need to sell my house and go on unemployment and work hopefully find a minimum wage service job now. Not what I was planning to do in my 50s.

I'm so sorry. It's happening to a lot of folks right now, not just you. Don't take it personally. You will find work, meaningful work, but it will take time. Good luck!

[minesweep]

hammer wrote:

Yep: MINESWEEP IS MANAGEMENT; Only a person in upper management with a secure job would come up with a statement like that.

You've made an erroneous assumption. I've been retired for eight years and I've never been a part of management (lower or upper).