Jeffery Immelt, Obama’s good pal, bailout recipient, and chief of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, is cutting jobs and taking some of his business to China.
GE Healthcare Ltd. is cutting 81 jobs at its Milwaukee and Waukesha facilities, or 1.2% of the company’s positions in southeastern Wisconsin, the medical technologies division of the General Electric Co. said Tuesday.
In response to questions, a GE spokesman said notifications were sent out on Friday and that GE is reducing staff in response to the economic uncertainty in the U.S. and Europe.
GE, which employs about 6,500 in southeastern Wisconsin, provided few other details.
GE’s medical technology operations in the region, based in Waukesha, Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, manufacture equipment for diagnostic imaging and X-ray equipment; computed tomography; magnetic resonance; ultrasound; and molecular imaging as well as interventional and life support systems. Those divisions amount to the biggest single cluster within GE Healthcare’s $17 billion-a-year worldwide operations.
http://www.jsonline.com/business/128260038.html
The other 6,419 employees had better brush up on their resumes.
GE and AVIC providing systems for China’s first large commercial aircraft:
Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd (COMAC) today announced that GE Aviation Systems and AVIC Systems, the partners to a proposed AVIC GE joint venture, have been selected to provide the avionics core processing system, display system and on-board maintenance system for the newly launched C919 single-aisle aircraft. The AVIC GE joint venture will support COMAC for avionics integration for the C919.
The public signing of the Letter of Intent for the C919 avionics selection was attended by senior management from GE, AVIC and COMAC. AVIC and GE are forming the new joint venture company to develop and market integrated avionics systems to the global commercial aerospace industry, and in particular the avionics systems for the C919.
“China is the world’s fastest-growing aviation market and we need to ensure GE and the United States are part of this growth,” said John Rice, Vice Chairman of GE. “Our participation helps GE to grow high-tech jobs and capabilities, while serving the aviation market with the latest commercial technology. The C919 program will support hundreds of jobs in US, China and the UK.”
The C919 modular avionics system provided by the proposed AVIC GE joint venture will be the central information system and backbone of the airplane’s networks and electronics and will host the airplane’s avionics, maintenance and utility functions. The system replaces dozens of traditional, standalone computers fitted to aircraft flying today, benefitting in weight savings, improved reliability and reduced operating cost.
Zhang Xinguo, AVIC vice president, said: “We are building a long-term partnership through the joint venture and will provide the C919 with advanced commercial technologies and products for its avionics systems. Although this joint venture is based in China, we anticipate expanding our customer market to the U.S. and other global markets as we work together to achieve mutual business success.”
http://www.geae.com/aboutgeae/presscenter/systems/systems_20100712.html
General Electric Co. (GE)’s health-care unit, the world’s biggest maker of medical-imaging machines, is moving the headquarters of its 115-year-old X-ray business to Beijing to tap growth in China.
“A handful” of top managers will move to the Chinese capital and there won’t be any job cuts, Anne LeGrand, vice president and general manager of X-ray for GE Healthcare, said in an interview. The headquarters will move from Waukesha, Wisconsin, amid a broader parent-company plan to invest about $2 billion across China, including opening six “customer innovation” and development centers.
The move follows the introduction earlier this year of GE Healthcare’s “Spring Wind” initiative to develop and distribute medical products and services in China, GE said in a statement today. More than 20 percent of the X-ray unit’s new products will be developed in China, LeGrand said.
The division should have “double-digit” growth rates as the country converts from film and analog to digital X-ray technology, LeGrand said. “When you look at a market like China, it’s primarily analog. So we feel this will also bring digital technology at an appropriate price-point.”
GE Healthcare, also the world’s biggest maker of magnetic resonance imaging and cardiac tomography scanners, got about $1.1 billion of its $16.9 billion in sales from China last year. Health-care device markets are forecast to more than double this year, according to researcher Epsicom.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/ge-healthcare-moves-x-ray-base-to-china-no-job-cuts-planned.html
The deal between AVIC, GE, and the Chinese will do wonders for Beijing’s military buildup:
Today, AVIC and COMAC and their subsidiaries produce all Chinese-made aircraft and components. COMAC also is building two commercial airliners, the C919 and ARJ21…
Since December, new aircraft have emerged that were considered unthinkable five years ago: the J-20 stealth fighter, J-18 vertical/shorttakeoff-and-landing fighter, J-15 carrier-borne fighter and L-15 lead-in fighter trainer. And that followed November’s Zhuhai air show, the biggest in China’s history, where major European and U.S. aerospace companies vied for space.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had long struggled to lift its defense industry out of a morbid Communist system that massproduced cheap copies of Russian junk. In 1993, the Chinese government spliced AVIC together from various parts of the former Ministry of Aerospace Industry and militaryowned factories and research institutes.
http://www.chinaherald.net/2011/08/chinas-weapon-industry-makes-new.html
Congratulations Jeffrey, for doing your part to prop up a communist totalitarian regime with more employment.
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