Arguably the largest doll manufacturer in the world, Mattel is also feeling the pain of the current economic hard times.
The parent company of Barbie and Fisher-Price, American Girl Dolls, and a major stake holder in Corolle, is cutting staff. 1000 in a round announced 11/6, and then another 260 from it’s Intellivision video game division announced 11/10. (Approx 3% of their workforce worldwide)
Mattel has traditionally been pretty loyal to it’s folks, so this is somewhat of a surprise, but they are saying that they will offer benefits to the laid off employees. I looked at their financial statements, and their third quarter results looked pretty good. But like everybody else in the doll industry, costs are up, (Chinese labor, testing expenses to meet new Congressional mandates, fuel to ship all these toys halfway around the world, and of course slowing consumer demand) so some method of cost cutting had to be found. I’m sorry it had to be people’s jobs.
Mini Calin Yang by Corolle
PS: Hey can I make a suggestion? We carry a large selection of Corolle Baby dolls and Asian Corolle baby dolls at our sites, and you would not believe how ‘overpackaged’ Corolle dolls are for shipping. You want to save money? Put more dolls in a bigger box, and you’ll surely reduce your costs. But hey, I’m just a lowly retailer at the end of the shipping chain… what do I know?