Wow....this certainly hits close to home and it all sounds true. I saw a headline in our local newspaper that announced that in our town (Rochester, New York) empolyment from Dec 04 to Dec 05 dropped 17,934. Rochester is the home of giants in the industry like Eastman Kodak, Xerox, Baush and Lomb, Delphi, Paycheck and more. But what is shocking to all of us living in this community, was the recent annoucement that the new single largest employer in our city is the local university/hospital !

When I came to work for Kodak in 1971, Kodak employed 69,000 in Rochester. As of today employment stands at just under 18,000 and we still have a multiyear reduction plan in place that will reduce employment further by another 5,000.

I'm willing to bet that this 'story' could be told by many of you all across this country. So I'll end it here.

alepel