6,000 More Job Cuts Won’t Fix 3M’s Problems
The latest announcement of streamlining comes on top of earlier restructurings that have failed to move the needle.
If 3M cuts costs and margins remain stuck, will anyone care?
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Will the latest round of cost cuts at 3M Co. actually bolster the bottom line? Its recent track record isn’t encouraging.
The maker of Post-It notes, automotive adhesives and roofing granules said on Tuesday that it would eliminate 6,000 jobs as Chief Executive Officer Mike Roman follows through on a pledge to take a “deeper look at everything we do” after a series of disappointing earnings updates and a more than $50 billion slide in 3M’s market value during his tenure. Also on Tuesday, 3M said first-quarter adjusted sales slid about 6% after backing out the impact of currency swings and divestitures amid weaker demand for face masks, consumer electronics, biopharmaceutical products and home-improvement goods — categories that benefited from pandemic trends that are unwinding. The company maintained its full-year earnings guidance, but this assumes a second-half improvement in a macroeconomic environment that Chief Financial Officer Monish Patolawala said is “fluid and uncertain."