The Business Journal has a follow-up piece on the looming Caterpillar layoffs, with comments from a Robert W. Baird analyst who is not surprised by the announcement.
Check out the story here. From it:
Caterpillar’s mining customers shrank their capital spending budgets this year, and many have even been spending below that lowered budget line, Dobre said.
“That, along with quite a bit of uncertainty for miners with regards to which projects they’re going to expand and continue versus the ones that they’re going to cancel, has created a near-term environment that is quite difficult for all mining (original equipment manufacturers),” Dobre said.
He pointed out that Caterpillar competitor Joy Global Inc. has faced these same challenges. The Milwaukee-based mining equipment maker has been going through a couple of rounds of restructuring, which you can read more about here.
Dobre told me he expects a “challenged” mining environment for the foreseeable future.
“But it remains to be seen as to whether or not incremental demand from slightly better growth in China is going to have a little bit of impact in lifting sales,” Dobre said.
South Milwaukee Blog 