Why not point out that we are always adjusting employment levels across our businesses.  We have people leaving as we reorganize or reduce activities in certain areas and we have people moving to other areas or being hired into areas where we are starting new businesses or growing.  We simply have not had the mass layoffs that other companies have announced.

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Denne, Karen  
Sent:	Monday, October 08, 2001 9:31 AM
To:	Palmer, Mark A. (PR); Kean, Steven J.; Shapiro, Richard
Subject:	FW: layoff statement

What do you think about something like this in response to the layoff question?  It could become our new "standard corporate policy."

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Meyer, Vance  
Sent:	Monday, October 08, 2001 9:25 AM
To:	Denne, Karen
Subject:	layoff statement

Karen -- 

Here's the safest statement I know for our situation as it relates to employment:

"We do not speculate about future employment levels.  If and when we have ever have changes affecting employees, we tell them first."

(Of course, we'll need to pretend that we didn't break the Europe layoff on Dow Jones!)

Vance