GE to Sell Appliances Unit

Firm to invest $580K in aviation plants amid effort to reboot economy

(NEWSER) - As General Electric prepares to host an economic summit in Washington, the firm has announced some fixes of its own: It will hire 5,000 US veterans over five years and invest $580 million in its aviation operations this year, Reuters reports. "We should have the confidence to act and to restore American competitiveness," said CEO and Obama adviser Jeffrey Immelt. The company will open new plants in Dayton, Ohio; Ellsville, Mississippi; and Auburn, Alabama. The four-day Washington gathering begins today, and will feature speeches by Boeing boss James McNerney and Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris. More»

Skilled jobs oozed out of the States in the 2000s

(NEWSER) - The US Commerce Department released a report today throwing into sharp relief just how drastically US multinational corporations are shifting jobs overseas. During the 2000s, US companies cut 2.9 million jobs in the US, while hiring 2.4 million abroad—including an increasing number of highly-skilled workers, the Wall Street Journal reports. That’s a big reversal from the 1990s, when they hired 4.4 million at home and 2.7 million abroad. More»

Jeffrey Immelt to replace Paul Volcker atop renamed group

(AP) - President Barack Obama is restructuring his economic advisory board to place an emphasis on job creation, and he is naming General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt as its new head. The new board, called the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, will replace the former Economic Recovery Advisory Board that had been chaired by the departing Paul Volcker . More»

(NEWSER) - It took the intervention of a PBS peacemaker to halt the bitterest media fight of the decade, insiders tell the New York Times. Bosses at Fox and at MSNBC owner GE were fed up with Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly's long-running feud—especially after they started savaging each other's networks—and proved receptive when PBS interviewer Charlie Rose spoke to chief executives Rupert Murdoch and Jeffrey Immelt about ending it. More»

CEO needs to shrink, simplify the business, but can't

(NEWSER) - Don’t envy GE’s Jeffrey Immelt. Though his core business remains profitable, the CEO presides over a huge, unwieldy empire. Parts of the conglomerate, like GE Capital, have tanked the entire corporation’s share price and caused it to lose its prized AAA credit rating. Worse, Immelt may have to sell the finance arm or other businesses to shrink the firm, writes Jena McGregor for BusinessWeek. More»