News In Brief

By Compiled from wire service reportsRobert Kilborn and Stephanie Cook

April 30, 2001

Eight thousand jobs, many of them in the US, will be cut by the giant food and personal care products marketing group Unilever, it announced Friday. The layoffs are the result of "redundancies" from Unilever's $20 billion acquisition last year of Bestfoods, the maker of Hellmann's mayonnaise, Skippy peanut butter, and other popular products. Unilever said the job cuts will take place over the next three years. The move also involves the closing of at least 30 factories. The British-Dutch company has dual headquarters: London and Rotterdam.

Knight Ridder said it will cut jobs at most of its 32 daily newspapers because of plunging advertising revenues and rising newsprint prices. The US's third-largest newspaper chain didn't specify how many of its 22,000 workers would be laid off. But chairman Tony Ridder said cuts will vary from paper to paper, depending on local market factors. Among the San Jose, Calif.-based group's publications are the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Miami Herald.