The aircraft maintenace layoff is the start of something big. The stock is at 49 bucks and it will go lower. Nov 99 it was 77 bucks and the economy was booming, but less than 10 years later it is in the tank. The stock will go lower and employees will be let go in high numbers. The majority of the stock is owned by managers so outside investors are dumping because of high wages for managers (grade 20's). Until the company can control cost at the top, we at the bottom, will continue to lose our jobs. The company needs to cut I.E., L.P., Eng Dept., P.E., etc etc to make room for drivers so we can be competative with FDX. FDX is not "top heavy" and they will survivie the downturn in the economy.
Some problems with this post . . .
November of 1999 was when the company went public. I could find no indication of The $77 that you are referencing after the IPO. The stock peaked just over $69 while publicly traded (granted it did split a couple of times) but did not break $70 until 2004. If you could post some additional facts to back up your claims that'd be great.
The stock peaked at $87.50 in December of '05.
In October of 2007, when the stock market was at it's height, UPS was trading at close to $79 a share. It closed today at $48.15 losing 39% of it's value since then, 45% since it hit the high in December of 2005.
FedEx which you are so praiseworthy of on the other hand has not faired as well.
In December of 2005, it was just over $100. It hit it's high of $121 in February of 2007 and closed today at $57.90. In October of 2007 when UPS was trading at $79 a share, FedEx was at $108.
So FedEx is down 46% from October of 2007 versus 39% with UPS, down only 42% from when UPS hit it's high in December of 2005, but it is down 52% from it's own all time high in February of 2007.
Furthermore . . . UPS has a quarterly dividend that goes up every year. This year it is $.45 a share. The dividend with FedEx . . . $.11 a share.
UPS has 995.2 Million Shares of stock outstanding (in somebody other than the company's hands). That's valued at today's close price at roughly $48 Billion (with a B). FedEx on the other hand has 311.3 Million shares outstanding valued at roughly $18 Billion based off today's close price.
So, If you like FedEx so much, why don't you go work there? You may still have a job, but you will be taking at least a 5% pay-cut. You will also find that they are just as top heavy, if not more now with the recent consolidations of Regions and Districts, than Big Brown considering the size of the companies.
UPS employs over 425K employees worldwide, FedEx on the other hand, a little over 252K employees.
Also, as for your claim that the majority of the stock is owned by managers, over 65% of the company stock is owned by institutional investors including investment banks and mutual funds. I'd be more than happy to provide a list including how much each fund owns of the company stock as this is public knowledge and reported by the SEC.