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Latest layoffs:

Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ) increases previously announced layoffs--bringing total to 10,000 workers, or 6% of the company’s workforce.

Jan. 28: Starbucks (nasdaq: SBUX - news - people ) organizes closings at 900 stores worldwide and fires 6,700 in the process.

Jan. 28: Target (nyse: TGT - news - people ) cuts 400 open positions and 600 employees on sagging sales.

Jan. 27: Time Warner’s (nyse: TWX - news - people ) AOL reduces workforce by 10% (700 workers) as it fights declining ad revenue.

Jan. 27: Cabinet company Merillat--a subsidiary of Masco (nyse: MAS - news - people )--cuts 20% of workforce (70 workers).

See layoffs by month:

January 2009

December 2008

November 2008

Ford Motor is suffering from guilt by association. The automaker has $15 billion or so in the bank and billions more in credit lines, is not looking for a year-end bailout and still gets splashed with mud. Every day I hear the TV news people, the stars like CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, lump General Motors, Ford and Chrysler together as facing bankruptcy. In Ford's case, this is just not true.

Alan Mulally, the chief executive Ford imported from Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ), has moved smartly since he gave up his wings. He mortgaged assets (for $24 billion) and signed up credit lines two years ago before all the current turbulence.

He also sold Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, some of Ford's Mazda (other-otc: MZDAF.PK - news - people ) stake and has put Volvo on the block. You can disagree or agree, maybe some of these operations could still have turned into winning assets, but Mulally decided Ford did not need the problems right now.

Unlike GM, Ford has no surplus car lines, which means it avoids both heavy spending to keep too big a lineup up-to-date and endless lectures from Wall Street know-it-alls who say to get rid of them. Excluding Volvo, which Ford hopes to sell, and Mazda Motor, in which it has only a minority stake, Ford has only two dealership channels in this country: Ford and Lincoln/Mercury.

Both Ford and GM are unlike Chrysler in that they have robust foreign operations. For Ford, Europe and South America earned $2.5 billion pre-tax in the first nine months this year. Those markets are slowing, yes, but they are strong businesses. Europe is providing the small-car knowledge and engineering that Ford needs in the U.S.

Yes, Ford has asked for a government-backed credit line, just in case the economic downturn gets much uglier, and is asking for some of the government cash that Congress already appropriated for updating plants and making fuel-saving vehicles. On the other hand, Ford is not begging for an immediate cash infusion to keep it afloat.

Long run, Ford has the ability to grow. For the past two months the Dearborn, Mich., manufacturer has held its own in share against the prior year, while the others slipped. The company even picked up share in November, to 16.4% of the industry sales versus 15.4% a year before. This is a good sign. If GM downsizes, Ford could end up bigger than GM in just a few years.

Boeing and Airbus can give up any hope that Chinese demand might help offset their global sales slump. The country's aviation industry regulator has advised mainland airlines to cancel or postpone aircraft deliveries in 2009, as carriers struggle with a decline in air travel demand. Clamoring for government handouts, the airlines will listen, though they may have a hard time extracting concessions from suppliers.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China released guidelines Wednesday advising airlines to cancel or delay delivery of purchased aircraft in 2009. It also asked airlines to retire old aircraft and said it will not consider any new airline applications until 2010, according to a statement. The regulator encouraged further alliances and consolidation.

The once booming Chinese airline sector is suffering from overcapacity amid a slump in travel that started in the second half of 2008 as the economy began to cool. The airlines also have suffered from a wave of steep fuel-hedging losses, as oil plunged below $50 a barrel from over $140 a barrel during the summer.

Despite the government's encouragement, it is unclear how many aircraft orders can be canceled or postponed. "I don't think too much flexibility will be given to the airlines because Boeing and Airbus are also facing declining orders" in the U.S. and Europe, said Kelvin Lau, Hong Kong-based airline analyst for Daiwa Securities. "If they allow one airline to defer delivery, many more will want to do the same."

But Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ) might allow more leeway than its archrival Airbus, a unit of EADS (other-otc: EADSY - news - people ), as the U.S. giant is facing difficulty meeting delivery schedules due to a labor strike that ended in November, he added.

Guotai Junan Securities analyst Martin Wang said the regulator's announcement may not have much impact without incentives, and noted that the commercial decisions remain in the airlines' hands. Delivery cancellations can also be expensive, as airlines typically put up in advance up to 30% of the purchase price, Lau said. Wang estimated penalties for contract changes may run 5% to 10% of the contract price.

Chinese airlines are on course to lose big this year. Beijing injected 3 billion yuan ($437.0 million) in November into China Southern Airlines (nyse: ZNH - news - people ), which Wang expects to post a loss of nearly 1 billion yuan ($145.7 million) for 2008. Wang and Lau expect China Eastern Airlines (nyse: CEA - news - people ) to get a similar government aid package--Wang estimates it is on track to post a loss of over 3 billion yuan ($437.0 million) for the year. Air China (other-otc: AIRYY - news - people ) is in the best shape of the three big Chinese airlines and may get by without aid.

Production at Boeing's helicopter plant in suburban Philadelphia was shut down Friday afternoon after a foreign object was found during inspection of an aircraft under production.

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., said he had been told by a Boeing executive that a plastic cap was found in the fuel line of a V-22 Osprey fuselage. Sestak, whose district includes the Delaware County plant, said Boeing could not immediately rule it out as a willful act.

Boeing spokesman John Williamson said production at the plant was shut down at 1 p.m. Friday, but declined to give details about the incident.

When the foreign object was found during the inspection, officials from the Defense Contract Management Agency, which oversees military contracts, were immediately notified, Williamson said. He said a federal investigation of the incident barred him from saying more, and said he could not say whether sabotage could be involved.

"Until the Department of Defense completes their review of the situation and sets the criteria, they will not be accepting aircraft from us and we won't be producing any," he said. About 1,600 of the approximately 5,500 employees at the Ridley Park plant are involved in manufacturing, Williamson said.

Sestak said the cap was found during an inspection that began after two dissimilar types of plastic caps couldn't be found at the end of a shift.

"Boeing says they can't rule out that it was not willful, so therefore they are proceeding as if it were," Sestak said. He said the lines were expected to be shut down through the weekend.

A disgruntled ex-Boeing worker admitted in court recently that in May he used his work-issued wire cutters to sever about 70 electrical wires running together from the cockpit to the main body of an H-47 Chinook. That also prompted the company to shut down production lines.

Machinists union members ratified a new contract with The Boeing Co. on Saturday, ending an eight-week strike that cut the airplane maker's profits and stalled jetliner deliveries.

The vote by members of the union, which represents about 27,000 workers at plants in Washington state, Oregon and Kansas, was about 74 percent in favor of the proposal five days after the two sides tentatively agreed to the deal and union leaders recommended its approval.

The workers are expected to return to Boeing's commercial airplane factories, which have been closed since the Sept. 6 walkout, starting Sunday night.

The union has said the contract protects more than 5,000 factory jobs, prevents the outsourcing of certain positions and preserves health care benefits. It also promises pay increases over four years rather than three, as outlined in earlier offers.

The union members, including electricians, painters, mechanics and other production workers, have lost an average of about $7,000 in base pay since the strike began. They had rejected earlier proposals by the company, headquartered in Chicago.

It was the union's fourth strike against Boeing in two decades and its longest since 1995. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers staged strikes against Boeing for 24 days in 2005, 69 days in 1995 and 48 days in 1989.

Boeing officials have said the contract allows them flexibility to manage their business and remain competitive.

The work stoppage was costing the company an estimated $100 million per day in deferred revenue and postponing delivery of its long-awaited 787 jetliner, which has already been delayed three times, and other commercial planes.

The strike came amid surging demand for Boeing's commercial jetliners, which include 737s, 747s, 767s and 777s. Boeing has said its order backlog has swollen to a record $349 billion in value.

It remains unclear how long it would take Boeing's commercial aircraft business to return to pre-strike production levels, but the company's chief financial officer, James Bell, has said Boeing hopes it would take less than two months.

The walkout started as the global economy began sinking into turmoil. Boeing executives have said only 10 percent of the company's orders come from domestic carriers, while the rest are placed by customers in other parts of the world, particularly Asia.

As the Machinists strike wore on, Boeing began talks with another union in hopes of avoiding a second strike by 21,000 scientists, engineers, manual writers, technicians and other hourly workers.

Boeing officials and representatives of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, which struck for 40 days in 2000, moved into the final phase of contract talks Wednesday. The union's two current contracts expire Dec. 1.

Negotiators at a hotel outside Seattle say they hope to present a proposal to that union's membership by mid-November.

On Saturday, Nov. 1, striking Boeing (BA) machinists will get a chance to vote on a proposed contract that could end a walkout that has halted plane manufacturing at the company since Sept. 6. Union leaders are crowing about the proposed four-year deal, calling it a victory for the workers. But management, while bruised, is walking away from the table with a few key wins, too.

For one, the company will be able to outsource as much work as it wants to on its new 787 commercial jet, the so-called Dreamliner that will be the most important plane in Boeing's lineup for the next decade or longer. The managers also exempted the planes and other products it makes in its defense operations from contract terms the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, or IAM, demanded.

"It was a pretty genuine compromise," says Paul H. Nisbet, an analyst with JSA Research in Malta, N.Y. "Boeing [managers] apparently held onto the right to run their business."

Just how much of a compromise will be something for workers to decide when they vote. IAM leaders, eager to sell the deal to their 27,000 striking workers, are pointing to the wage and benefit gains and job-security terms they've won.

Union Gains

"Our union has delivered what few Americans have—economic certainty and quality benefits over the next four years," said Tom Wroblewski, president of IAM's District 751 unit, which represents Puget Sound area workers. "In this round, we won the battle and made some significant gains."

The IAM was able to stave off changes management had wanted in health care and pension benefits, for instance. Boeing originally sought to shift some costs in medical care onto employees, but the new deal freezes the structure on the same terms as were adopted in a 2005 contract settlement. The union also forced the managers to back away from plans to deny a traditional "defined-benefit" pension plan to future workers and give them a 401(k) plan instead, and it in fact won increases in the traditional benefit. They also won wage increases of 5% in the first year, 3% in the second and third years, and 4% in the final year of the contract.

IAM leaders are pointing to a few other major gains:

•Some 2,200 facilities and maintenance employees have their job security guaranteed for the life of the contract.

•The IAM can compete for work that moves from one Boeing facility to another. If its members can do the work more cheaply than outsiders, they can get the work.

•Some 2,920 forklift drivers and other shipping personnel will not be laid off.

•Outside vendors must deliver products to IAM members in designated area, except for work on the 787.