Schwab Orders Workers to Take Days Off in Effort to Trim Costs

Charles Schwab Corp. is ordering thousands of its employees to take off three Fridays during the next five weeks as part of the stock brokerage’s continuing efforts to weather a downturn in its once-booming business.

All employees who don’t interact with Schwab’s customers in the branches or telephone service centers have been told not to report for work this Friday, Feb. 16 and March 2, spokesman Glen Mathison said Tuesday. To be paid, the employees will have to use their vacation time.

Schwab is still determining how many employees will be affected by the mandate. More than 10,000 of Schwab’s 26,300 full-time employees probably will be kept away from the office.

Although its operations will be scaled back during the three Fridays, all of Schwab’s branches will remain open.

The Friday furloughs will help Schwab pad its profit during what analysts expect to be a poor quarter for the San Francisco-based firm. Even if all the affected employees use vacation time to get paid, the move will still reduce Schwab’s accrued liabilities and improve its balance sheet, Mathison said.

To combat the sluggish market conditions, Schwab already has slashed management salaries by as much as 50% through March and reduced the company’s first-quarter bonus pool 5%.