Layoffs

The reality television show "Project Runway" this season is putting the spotlight on Los Angeles, where designers toil in a loft downtown, competing to win $100,000 to start their own clothing line. The local industry could use the boost. L.A.'s once-flourishing garment design and manufacturing industry is shedding jobs as quickly as a mohair sweater loses its fur. Weak U.S. consumer spending is generating less demand for the services of the people who stitch, cut and sew clothing in Los Angeles County.

University of California officials Wednesday said they will proceed with plans to seek a 9.3% hike in undergraduate student fees for next school year and warned that faculty and staff layoffs might be needed if state financing measures fail in the May election and the budget deficit worsens. The increase, amounting to $662, would bring the average basic cost for an undergraduate UC education to $8,720 a year for California residents, not including room, board and books.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, grappling with slumping DVD sales and a worsening economy, plans to cut about 300 jobs, or about 4% of its workforce, through layoffs and by eliminating open positions, according to a person familiar with the situation. The cuts could come as early as next week, the person said. A Sony spokesman declined to comment. Sony is the latest Hollywood studio to lay off employees, following cutbacks at Warner Bros., Universal Pictures and Paramount Pictures.

The Los Angeles Times announced plans Friday to lay off 300 people -- including 70 newsroom workers -- and fold its California section into the main news pages. The moves are the latest efforts by the West's largest paper to cope with the steep loss of advertising revenue caused by the recession and the flight of advertisers to online media outlets. "We're trying to get ahead of what we see as a very tough year ahead of us," Publisher Eddy Hartenstein said.

Superior Industries International Inc., an aluminum wheel supplier to most major U.S. and foreign automakers, said Tuesday that it would close its plant in Van Nuys by the end of the second quarter and fire 290 employees, or 9% of its workforce. The company, which expects to save $16.5 million annually in labor costs, said it was making the cuts because the slumping vehicle sales mean less demand for wheels.

One of the state's largest employers, healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, said it would eliminate more than 1,800 positions as it struggles with drooping membership, uncertain healthcare reform and shriveling Medicare reimbursement rates. Job reductions will occur within the next few months, the Oakland-based nonprofit said Tuesday. Many of the purged positions -- just under 2% of Kaiser employees -- are temporary, on-call or short-hour. Most Kaiser medical centers in California will be affected.

For more than 17 years, Yvonne Nance knew just who she was -- the helpful voice at the other end of the line when people called AT&T for directory assistance. That ended in December, when AT&T Inc. informed the 47-year-old mother of four that she was among 12,000 workers being cut from the telecom giant's payroll. Two months later, Nance is confused. "I'm going to my 30th class reunion in July," the Los Angeles resident said. "What do I put on my bio? Unemployed? Homemaker?

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday approved nearly $1.6 billion in cuts over the next three years that will result in layoffs and increased class sizes and could one day mean the elimination of such key programs as all-day kindergarten and summer school.

Because of the state's budget uncertainty, the Los Angeles school board agreed Tuesday to potentially lay off up to 2,300 teachers if no other options become available this year. The Los Angeles Unified School District faces up to a $250-million shortfall, and the move could shave about $50 million from that figure. But Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, in his first board meeting as head of the district, said he hoped not to send the notices. "This is strictly a place-holder," he said.

Washington Mutual Inc., the country's largest thrift, plans to cut 1,200 jobs nationwide. The Seattle company, hit hard by turmoil in the mortgage and credit markets, said some layoffs would be in its home-loan business. Workers in that WaMu unit have been the target of recent layoffs as the company has stopped offering sub-prime mortgages and other risky loans. WaMu said eligible laid-off employees who didn't find other jobs inside the company would receive severance and job-placement assistance.