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Caterpillar cuts jobs
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December 21, 2001: 9:46 a.m. ET
Move affects 1% of worldwide staff; 4Q earnings guidance affirmed.
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NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. is cutting about 1 percent of its staff and taking a $55 million charge to cover the cost of those cuts.
The company said that 420 of the job cuts will come from various U.S. locations, or about 1 percent of its U.S. staff.
It also said it would move ahead with its previously announced plans to close its Perkins Engines manufacturing plant in Shrewsbury, England. That will eliminate about 520 jobs, bringing total cuts to about 940 positions out of 72,000 worldwide.
Shares of Caterpillar (CAT: up $0.71 to $51.31, Research, Estimates), a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, opened up about 1 percent in Friday trading.
The company said that excluding the cost of the special charge related to the cuts, it is comfortable with the guidance it gave for the fourth quarter when it released third-quarter results.
Analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call are looking for earnings per share of 76 cents in the quarter, the same result the company posted a year earlier. 
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