Layoffs

As California and the rest of the nation stagger from massive layoffs and soaring unemployment, companies in Taiwan have largely opted to cut pay and work hours to deal with the economic crisis. Here in Hsinchu Science Park, modeled after California's Silicon Valley, about 100,000 of its 130,000 workers are taking up to 10 days of unpaid leave a month. Part of the reason is pressure from Taiwan's government, they say.

Confronted with a growing budget deficit, the Writers Guild of America, West plans to cut about 20 positions by the end of the month. The guild, which has about 185 employees, notified worker representatives last week that layoffs, which could begin this week, were needed to plug a budget hole of more than $2 million, said two people familiar with the matter. The union, which has 8,000 members, has annual operating expenses of about $25 million.

Amid continuing fallout from the tough economy and volatility of its movie and DVD business, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. has slashed jobs for the second time in five months. The Santa Monica-based movie and television studio is eliminating 45 positions, or 8% of its 550-person workforce, the company said Friday. The latest downsizing included 27 people who were laid off Friday and 10 who were moved into independent contractor consulting jobs and production deals.

Hollywood's largest actors union is cutting 8% of its staff in the face of investment losses and declining membership dues. The Screen Actors Guild plans to lay off about 35 workers to help close a $6.5-million deficit in the union's fiscal 2009 budget. The cuts affect several departments and include those who work in the union's organizing and information technology departments, according to people familiar with the matter. Affected workers will be notified this week.

Faced with a looming $530-million budget gap, the Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to initiate the layoff process for up to 400 city workers and to eliminate 1,200 vacant positions. The action allows the city's personnel department to begin the arduous process of identifying which workers would be let go if layoffs were approved in the 2009-10 budget, which is still under consideration by the council. Councilman Bernard C.

With Los Angeles facing a $529-million budget deficit, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday urged the City Council to declare a fiscal emergency that would grant him the authority to lay off and furlough thousands of city workers.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday got down to the grim business of slashing spending to make up for an expected $530-million budget shortfall, starting with a possible police hiring freeze, mass layoffs and mandatory unpaid furloughs for city workers.

Saying Los Angeles' financial troubles are grave and expected to grow far worse in the years ahead, the City Council on Monday approved widespread layoffs and furloughs for city workers but set aside enough money to back away from a proposal to freeze police hiring. The severity of the cuts remains in flux, however, as city officials and public employee unions continue to negotiate possible salary and benefit concessions that could save the city more than $230 million.

A week after cutting 30% of its U.S. workforce, social-networking giant MySpace said Tuesday that it would cut two-thirds of its international workforce and consolidate overseas operations in fewer countries. The cuts -- 420 jobs domestically and 300 overseas -- marked a further loosening of the Beverly Hills company's once-iron grip on the social-networking world. The News Corp. subsidiary has lost 3.4 million U.S. users in the last 12 months, according to Web ratings firm ComScore Inc.

After weeks of wrangling, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens will present the Board of Supervisors today with restructuring plans that include $20.5 million in cuts -- the most significant in the department's history. "These are services that we believe are quite important to maintaining public safety, that we're not just going to be able to continue," sheriff's spokesman John McDonald said.