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By JOHN NOLAN; Associated Press Writer
Saturday, July 17, 1993     Page: 1 & 12A QUICK WORDS: G&W TO CUT 13,000
JOBS WORLDWIDE

CINCINNATI — Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble is cutting 13,000
jobs worldwide and closing 30 plants during the next two to four years in the
most radical restructuring in its 156-year history.
   
With its announcement Thursday, the maker of such familiar household
products as Tide detergent and Pampers disposable diapers becomes the latest
American industrial titan to respond to the sluggish world economy by
drastically cutting costs.
    There was no word if cutbacks will affect Procter & Gamble’s large paper
products manufacturing plant in Mehoopany.
   
A spokeswoman at the 3,000-worker facility said the final number and
location of plants that will be shut have not been determined yet.
   
Announcements will be made to employees at the affected sites as soon as
those decisions are made, said Lou Ann Eckert-Lynch, site industrial relations
manager.
   
The Mehoopany plant, open for 27 years, manufactures disposable diapers,
paper kitchen towels and bathroom tissues. In 1991, company officials said the
local plant is responsible for 40 percent of profit and volume of the
company’s paper division.
   
Unlike such troubled behemoths as IBM, GM and Sears, Procter & Gamble is
highly profitable, and so is making the changes from a position of strength.
Company officials also announced they would increase shareholders’ dividends
by 13 percent.
   
“We wanted to take our company apart brick by brick and put it back
together again — into a leaner, faster-moving, more financially fit
organization,” said Edwin L. Artzt, chairman and chief executive. “We started
with the premise that if we simplify our work, we can operate just as well and
probably better with fewer people.”
   
He said the changes should generate $500 million in after-tax savings by
1995-96.
   
But the one-time costs associated with the changes were expected to
contribute to an unspecificed loss for P&G’s fiscal year, which ended June 30.
   
The company established a $1.5 billion after-tax reserve to pay for the
consolidation and restructuring of its business and the reduction of overhead.
It also set aside $925 million to cover the cost of accounting changes.
   
The number of jobs to be cut represents 12 percent of the company’s work
force of 106,000.
   
Artzt said he hoped most of the reductions would come through attrition,
reassigning or transferring people, and encouraging early retirements and
voluntary departures with buyouts.
   
Workers who refuse transfers or cannot be reassigned will be offered up to
one year of severance pay, job retraining and placement.
   
Final decisions on which plants to close will be made in November, but not
all of them will be announced then, Artzt said. Plants to be closed will be
given six to 12 months notice.
   
The moves, which Artzt called the most extensive in P&G’s history, come as
it is trying to get new products to market faster and compete with discounting
rivals that have won an increased following among cost-conscious consumers.
   
There was little reaction to the news on Wall Street, as many investors
expected something similar. P&G stock closed Thursday at $51.87 a share on the
New York Stock Exchange, off 87 cents.
   
“The only surprise was the size of the manufacturing realignment,” said Jay
Freedman, an analyst with Lincoln Capital Management in Chicago.
   
P&G’s net earnings for fiscal 1991-92 were $1.9 billion, up 6 percent from
the year before.
   
Artzt told industry analysts he expected earnings for fiscal 1992-93 to
exceed a record $2 billion after taxes but before the $1.5 billion and $925
million are set aside.