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American Morning
Minding Your Business: Lord & Taylor Getting Tailored
Aired July 31, 2003 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: More tough news for thousands of workers this morning. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
Hey, Andy, good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.
O'BRIEN: And bad news if you work at Lord & Taylor or Pillowtex.
SERWER: That's right. Some real -- a whole lot of pink slips flying this morning, as you said. You know, the president yesterday at the White House talking about jobs and really kind of taking a lot of heat from some reporters about that, and it's no wonder. I mean, this picture is not really particularly improving.
Lord & Taylor today saying they're going to be closing 32 stores, Soledad, 3,700 employees will be laid off. They're moving out of states like Florida and Texas completely, stores in Hartford and Albany closing down. So, not a good picture there at all.
And if you want to keep going and talking about Pillowtex, which you mentioned, interesting -- actually, Pillowtex, out of Kannapolis, North Carolina, they had a showroom up here in this building as a matter of fact. Here is the blotter for just this week alone. I added this up. I've got like, what, 17,000 jobs right there on your screen gone this week.
Pillowtex makes all kinds of pillows and sheets -- Fieldcrest, Cannon, that kind of thing -- and devastation there in North Carolina in the textile industry. Not a good picture at all.
O'BRIEN: And pulling out of areas that are hard-hit economically already, so it's going to be an even worse picture for those areas.
SERWER: Yes, that's right. And, tomorrow, the unemployment rate will get revised for July. We're already at, what, 6.4. Economists think it's probably going to stay stable. But if that jumps more again that will be just more bad news for the economy.
O'BRIEN: Give me a quick check of the markets.
SERWER: We were down a little bit yesterday, kind of flattish, and the futures are kind of stable right now. We are going to be getting a GDP report out at 8:30 for the second quarter, so we'll be watching that closely.
O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thanks. SERWER: OK.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired July 31, 2003 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: More tough news for thousands of workers this morning. Andy Serwer is "Minding Your Business."
Hey, Andy, good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.
O'BRIEN: And bad news if you work at Lord & Taylor or Pillowtex.
SERWER: That's right. Some real -- a whole lot of pink slips flying this morning, as you said. You know, the president yesterday at the White House talking about jobs and really kind of taking a lot of heat from some reporters about that, and it's no wonder. I mean, this picture is not really particularly improving.
Lord & Taylor today saying they're going to be closing 32 stores, Soledad, 3,700 employees will be laid off. They're moving out of states like Florida and Texas completely, stores in Hartford and Albany closing down. So, not a good picture there at all.
And if you want to keep going and talking about Pillowtex, which you mentioned, interesting -- actually, Pillowtex, out of Kannapolis, North Carolina, they had a showroom up here in this building as a matter of fact. Here is the blotter for just this week alone. I added this up. I've got like, what, 17,000 jobs right there on your screen gone this week.
Pillowtex makes all kinds of pillows and sheets -- Fieldcrest, Cannon, that kind of thing -- and devastation there in North Carolina in the textile industry. Not a good picture at all.
O'BRIEN: And pulling out of areas that are hard-hit economically already, so it's going to be an even worse picture for those areas.
SERWER: Yes, that's right. And, tomorrow, the unemployment rate will get revised for July. We're already at, what, 6.4. Economists think it's probably going to stay stable. But if that jumps more again that will be just more bad news for the economy.
O'BRIEN: Give me a quick check of the markets.
SERWER: We were down a little bit yesterday, kind of flattish, and the futures are kind of stable right now. We are going to be getting a GDP report out at 8:30 for the second quarter, so we'll be watching that closely.
O'BRIEN: All right, Andy, thanks. SERWER: OK.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
