By
Bhushan Akolkar
October 27th, 2023
General Electronic workers protest at the company’s headquarters after the announcement of a possible lay-off. However, GE stock shows a positive tendency.
Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the world has been forced to experience an economic recession with prices of commodities in the international market crashing day by day as multinational firms are experiencing a hard time as well. General Electric (NYSE: GE) is one of the many multinational firms hit by the pandemic. It has also had to deal with the situation in its way by announcing a necessity to cut down the workforce by a certain percentage for three months to enable it to save around $500 million to $1 billion according to a press release by the firm.
The announcement has forced the Industrial Division of Communication Workers of America, or IUE-CWA, to react severely as they had to protest at the company’s aviation facility in Lynn, Massachusetts, as well as its headquarters in Boston and make certain demand from their employers.
The union representing General Electric workers in America requested from the firm that they use their entire manufacturing resource to produce more ventilators as a way to fill the void coronavirus pandemic has caused.
However, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), alongside General Electric Healthcare, revealed that United Auto Workers union employees would start producing a simpler version of GE Healthcare’s ventilator design to help coronavirus patients who find it difficult to breathe to do so. Also, General Electric has come out to say that they are “working round the clock” to produce more ventilators thanks to its partnership with ford.
“General Electric Healthcare has already doubled ventilator production capacity, with a plan to double it again by June, in addition to partnering with Ford Motor Company to increase ventilator production further. We continue to explore additional opportunities to support the fight against COVID-19 while continuing to support mission-critical work for our customers as well,” a company’s spokesperson said.
General Electric Stock amid Global Pandemic
Taking a closer look at the firm’s stock in the last few months, comparing it to the 2008 recession, it is believed that General Electric stock possibly could rise by 40% when the coronavirus pandemic eventually comes to a halt.
Reportedly, this decision was arrived after comparing the firm’s performance vis-à-vis the S&P 500 in the interactive dashboard analysis, 2007-08 vs 2020.
After the World Health Organization declared a health emergency in January, between then and March, General Electric has lost about 39% of its value. The stock began to drop March 6th significantly when more and more people began to fall sick of coronavirus outside China that lead to a global economic shutdown.
It continued to get worse when the economic meltdown began to affect oil prices in the international market not only because of coronavirus but also because oil-producing Saudi Arabia also massively triggered an increase in production.
Also, as a result of a sharp reduction in air travel, the General Electric aviation business is projected to be affected drastically.
Today GE stock is moving up, the growth is around 2%. At the time of writing, the stock is trading at $8.03.