[photopress:lG.JPG,full,alignright]LG is a company that produces much in the way of electronics including computers as shown in the illustration. It is also quite shy about revealing where it started.
LG was started in 1947 as Lucky Chemical Industrial and manufactured a cosmetic called Lucky Cream.
At the height of the Korean War in 1952, LG became the first Korean company to enter the plastics industry to develop unbrittle lids of cosmetics containers. It moved on from there and manufactured combs, soap cases, toothbrushes, tableware, and other plastic containers.
In 1954, LG became the first Korean company to develop a brand of toothpaste using its own technology. It also swung into the making of soaps and glycerin.
In 1958 it established a company called Goldstar (currently LG Electronics), which produced Korea’s first radio in 1959, Since then it has all been expansion but the company is strangely reticent about its early days.
In Australia it swears LG stands for Life’s Good and almost totally denies its Korean heritage. There is no mention of it on its website.
Thus when a fact arises which does not quite fit its new and electronic image the news is broken in a way which might be thought to be spin doctoring.
In China LG is reducing staff and about 10% will go. This is not a reduction in the work force. Certainly not.
Han Xue, public relations representative of LG China, has said LG’s move is not a staff reduction and it is instead a human resource adjustment. Sounds much better.
Han Xue says that since Nam K. Woo took over the positions of president and CEO of LG Electronics China, the company has launched a series of new strategies. In order to carry out these strategies, they have had to make some personnel adjustments by simplifying each of their functional departments. Which is the same thing as firing 10% of the staff but sounds more scientific.
In fact, some China media says that the rate is as high as 20% in some of the branches in China.
All of which might be connected with the fact that the first quarter financial report of LG shows that the company suffered a net loss of US$131 million in the period, which was the worst since the fourth quarter of 2003.
LG entered China market in 1993. Since then it has invested more than US$2 billion in the country.
Source: Jongo News