Hughes Corp. trimming Vegas staff

Jennifer Shubinski

Tuesday, April 29, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.

The Rouse Co. said today it laid off 12 employees at its Las Vegas subsidiary, The Howard Hughes Corp., developer of the Summerlin planned community and the big Hughes Center office park in midtown Las Vegas.

The 12 Las Vegas positions subject to layoff will be eliminated over the next few weeks, said Tom Warden, vice president of community and government relations for Howard Hughes.

No one segment of the Rouse Co. work force in Las Vegas was targeted, but rather a variety of jobs were eliminated, Warden said. He declined to go into further detail.

In a statement from the Rouse Co., based in Columbia, Md., the job cuts were attributed to the company's plan to "reorganize its corporate structure," which has been implemented over the past nine months.

"This effort to improve the efficiency of its operations, unfortunately entails some reductions of staff," the statement said.

The statement said the move was necessary to keep the company competitive.

"The end result will be an organizational structure that will continue to produce high quality projects and excellent returns to shareholders."

Jobs were eliminated throughout the Rouse Co., not just at The Howard Hughes Corp., Warden said. He did know how many jobs company-wide that had been eliminated.

About 200 people remain on the job at Howard Hughes in Las Vegas, he said.