WHAS11 coverage

Yum Brands announces job cuts

Ford forcing shutdown of Fern Valley plant for month of December

Owner of Oxmoor and Mall St. Matthews may go bankrupt, will it affect local operations?

(WHAS11) - Ford is closing for the month of December.  Yum Brands is slashing jobs.  The owners of Mall St. Matthews and Oxmoor Center may be going bankrupt.  And that's only the beginning.

Nancy Shepherd says, "It's frightening.  It is terrifying."

Even for people who don't work at any of the places delivering bad news today, the economy is still worrisome for people like Shepherd, owner of Cafe Metro.  Her restaurant is already feeling the effects of the struggling economy.  Cafe Metro is considered to be one of the best restaurants in Louisville, but you wouldn’t know it by the smaller amount of customers.

Shepherd says, "I'm not busy, because people don't have the disposable income."

And she says hearing about Ford, Yum Brands and the local malls today, is troubling.

She says, "Coming to dinner is going to the last thing on their list of things to do.  It's finding food to make dinner at home."

U of L Finance Professor David Dubofsky calls this the "ripple effect," and says eventually, we will all feel the ripple.

Dubofsky says, "The people who lost their jobs stop going to restaurants, stop spending money at the mall, they'll do less traveling.  So for every lost job there are many secondary effects, a multiplier effect in terms of the impact on the economy."

This trend will continue to grow until the economy starts to recover but it won't happen for a while.

Dubofsky says, "It's going to be a long, painful process that we're going though right now."

The Ford plant will only be closed for the month of December.  According to a Yum Brands spokesperson, the layoffs in Louisville are part of restructuring plan.  Some of those jobs will be transferred to other locations.  And the company that owns the St. Matthews and Oxmoor Mall say even if the company goes bankrupt, they still plan to continue operating.