Hughes Electronics to Cut Work Force

Hughes Electronics Corp., which runs the satellite television service DirecTV, will slash as much as 10% of its U.S. work force as it struggles to regain profitability in the global economic downturn.

The El Segundo-based company, which announced the layoffs late Friday, employs about 7,900 people in the United States. It is a subsidiary of General Motors Corp.

Spokesman Richard Dore said most of the layoffs will occur at the DirecTV operation. He declined to be more specific except to say that other Hughes divisions also will face layoffs, including DirecTV Latin America headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., satellite network PanAmSat Corp. in Wilton, Conn., and telecommunications equipment maker Hughes Network Systems in Germantown, Md.

The exact number of lost jobs, as well as a cost-saving target, remained undetermined.

DirecTV has 10 million subscribers and is the nation’s largest satellite television broadcaster.

News of the layoffs comes just a month after Hughes said it lost $156.5 million in the second quarter, more than twice as much as last year despite an 8.1% rise in revenue. It also has lowered its 2001 revenue projections and warned that sales for the year would be lower than expected because of a sluggish economy.

GM is in talks to sell Hughes to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for an undisclosed sum.

Rival satellite company EchoStar Communications Corp., owner of the Dish Network, has a competing, unsolicited bid on the table for $28.8 billion. The Littleton, Colo. firm has only 6.1 million subscribers but has been praised by analysts for its marketing and customer recruitment this year.