Cascade Corp and Raymond Corp have trimmed operations in the face of the economic slowdown and uncertainty.

Cascade says it reduced its workforce by 20%, cut executive team salaries and board of director fees by 10% and instituted pay and hiring freezes.

In addition, Cascade has reduced work schedules, imposed limited-time plant shutdowns and applied spending controls to lower production and administrative costs and capital expenditures.

As of 31 March, Cascade had 2,000 employees worldwide, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

For the fourth quarter ended 31 January, Cascade reported a loss of USD30.5 million on sales of USD95.1 million versus profit of USD8.8 million on sales of USD136.2 million for the previous year's comparable quarter. Using industry statistics, Cascade says February 2009 orders for forklifts dropped 53% in North America, 65% in Europe, 58% in the Asia Pacific and 2% in China. Cascade noted that forklift orders do not necessarily correlate directly with demand for Cascade's product lines.

Full-year profit declined 98%, and sales dropped 4%. For the fiscal year ended 31 January, Cascade had profit of USD1.3 million on sales of USD534.2 million versus the previous year's profit of USD60.1 million on sales of USD558.1 million.

Publicly traded Fairview-based Cascade designs, manufactures and markets materials handling load-engagement attachments, forks, other equipment and related technologies for the forklift and construction industries. For forklift operators, the Cascade devices can engage, lift, reposition, carry and deposit loads and products.

Other North American manufacturing occurs in Springfield, Ohio; Warner Robins, Georgia; Findlay, Ohio; and Mississauga and Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Cascade has European headquarters and manufacturing in Almere, the Netherlands; other European production in Germany, England, France and Italy; and six Asia Pacific manufacturing locations in China, Australia and South Korea.

Meanwhile, Raymond says it reduced its North American workforce by about 10% recently. The number of layoffs was not disclosed.

The electric forklift manufacturer has production and other operations at its headquarters Greene, New York facility and other sites in East Syracuse, New York; Muscatine, Iowa; and Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

In December, Raymond opted to put employees on three- and four-day work weeks rather than go the layoff route at that time.

Raymond began participating in a State of New York shared-work program under which some employees receive partial payment of unemployment insurance benefits to help make up for lost wages from fewer work hours.

Raymond is a business of Toyota Industries Corp of Kariya, Japan.