But Enimont also has some problems: It is overstaffed and has inefficient internal distribution, and the two groups that formed it often duplicate efforts.
When a similar thing happened with the first option bond last year, the societies reacted angrily and interest rates on that bond were promptly cut. Kenneth Clarke could take the view that building societies are overstaffed and need to make economies.
The government last week proposed closing 14 branches of the National Mortgage Bank, which was reported to run at a huge deficit and said to be overstaffed.
Officials in both German states say the inefficient, overstaffed farms must change to model the leaner, privately run operations in the West.
While many analysts say the securities industry remains overstaffed for the level of business, Mr. Schreyer said that Wall Street's consolidation since the crash seems to be slowing down.
Its latest plan excluded employees with scarce skills, such as electrical engineers. Ford also set precise ceilings for job categories it is seeking to trim in overstaffed operations, including its financial-services group.
After the downturn in the real estate market, some big Wall Street brokerage firms cut back their overstaffed departments catering to the area.
Though British Telecom's basic United Kingdom phone business is faring well, the former government phone monopoly concedes it is overstaffed and bureaucratic compared with all U.S. and some European rivals.
Pemex has about 180,000 employees and is considered overstaffed by industry experts.
This is about half the industry average and hardly represents an overstaffed, congested management.
One New York clothing store was surprised to find Staffworks could cut its number of overstaffed hours by 92% and reduce understaffed hours by 64% with the same workers and payroll level.
Nevertheless, analysts say Digital remains overstaffed compared with competitors.
The subsidized Japan National Railway, now being privatized, was long among the most notoriously overstaffed in the non-communist world. The government provided enormous benefits for the shipbuilding industry, yet it declined for years.
But the collectives are typically too large, inefficient and overstaffed to compete with better-run Western agricultural operations.
Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires is posting losses of about $5 million monthly because it's overstaffed and has nonperforming loans.
The government says the company is overstaffed and accuses the union of sabotage when it doesn't get what it wants, but the union official denied that.