Even General Electric will cut costs


General Electric (NYSE: GE) CEO Jeffrey Immelt is a hard man to pin down. He speaks in generalities, and what he says often does not turn out to be true. He has made sweeping comments about how well the company will do providing infrastructure services to countries like India and China. How often does he give a precise update on how that is going?

Now Immelt is talking about cutting costs and expenses at GE. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), in an interview yesterday he said, "Costs will be lower in 2009 than in 2008. That will be true across the board." He offered the observation that the cuts would include employees. How many? No one knows, and he is not saying.

Usually when a chief executives says his company will cut people, he either says how many or what percentage of the workforce it will be. That is not the case here. Immelt is keeping that to himself.

What is more remarkable than the man's reticence is the fact that the company did not move sooner. GE's results have been more modest that people would like The third quarter numbers were down right troubling. GE must have seen that coming. Where were the layoffs of thousands of people back then?

Hard to say. Immelt is cagey.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

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