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Lego Laying Off 1200 / Ending US Production

msnbc.msn.com — How sad of a day! Lego will be ending it's US production and laying off a good chunk of it's workforce.

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  • billmania, on 10/12/2007, -68/+16Another evil corporation moving overseas to make a buck.
    • RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -14/+28Welcome to the real world. Corporations are here to make money, not guarantee jobs for life.
    • Silby, on 10/12/2007, -5/+50Overseas?

      "Production will be moved from Enfield, Conn., to Mexico, where costs are lower, the group said in a statement."

      Now let's think...is there an ocean between the U.S. and Mexico? I know. This is a tough one. I'll give you some time to think about it. However, it's only Cubans that come here on rafts, not all illegal immigrants.
    • Strongoloid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38Lego is a company that started in Denmark I think, so I suppose technically they came overseas to America to make more money. And to the guy a few posts below me, I agree: Mindstorms was the best Lego thing ever.
    • potee, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Just out of curiosity, in your mind, what company isn't evil? We already know the following companies are evil for making money and providing a service which you voluntarily pay for:

      -Microsoft (but Apple is OK)
      -Big Oil
      -Big Tobacco
      -Fast Food
      -Pharmaceutical companies
      -Insurance companies
      -Domestic auto makers (for laying off workers)
      -Foreign auto makers (for stealing American jobs)
      -Wal*Mart
      -Gun manufacturers
      -Airlines
      -Boeing, Northrop Grumman, McDonnell Douglas

      Any I missed?

      /Mess with my Legos, I mess with you.
    • drawkbox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14They are essentially the last toy company here and they are Danish. They stuck it out even past the Radio Flyer wagon. Almost zero toys are made in the US. Now combine mindstorms with a new microsoft robotic patform and maybe we have something. The government just give too many benefits to move offshore or to mexico for them to stay here.
    • akhomerun, on 10/12/2007, -12/+13"-Boeing, Northrop Grumman, McDonnell Douglas"

      i know potee wasn't saying these companies are evil, but anyone who believes Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and McDonnell Douglas are evil should consider the fact that without them we'd all be speaking german today.

      yeah yeah, i know, totally completely utterly off-topic.
    • notdarkyet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15i dont know what roflmao means but it is probably for the better
    • q3ctf4, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Watch this video clip and then comeback here. I think it says it all.

      http://www.jibjab.com/JokeBox/JokeBox_JJOrig.aspx?movieid=122
    • kalisphoenix, on 10/12/2007, -9/+16Outsourcing is a decent proof that laissez-faire capitalism is a load of *****.

      Look, everyone! They're moving overseas, and why? Because labor is cheaper there. Why is labor cheaper there? Because people are living in filth and squalor and saving up all week to buy a chicken to share with the village. Why is labor more expensive here? Because everything costs so damned much! Why does everything cost so damned much? Because labor costs so damned much!

      It's all spiralling out of control. Companies battle each other to have the lowest price, which means they need their employees to live and work in absolutely ***** conditions in order to survive. Therefore, American businesses cannot survive without an exploited workforce.

      This is where the thoughtful Randroid says "well, they contracted voluntarily...." Sure they did. But this isn't about Indonesia -- this is about the US. Unemployment reaches 10%, and you say "well, they'll just have to try harder." And do what? Start their own business exploiting brown people? With what capital? With what as a starting point? If you read those books on economics that you seem to cherish so much, you'd see that a small business cannot possibly compete with a large one in today's economy and society.

      The end result is that blue collar people are screwed, while people with college degrees succeed. "Fine," you say. "They should have gone to college." Perhaps (if we ignore the entirety of what the social sciences teach us), so where do they work? Picking berries?

      Hooray for immense social stratification. If we've learned anything in the past couple thousand years of human society, it's that unbalanced societies end quickly and violently. It's fine and dandy to have a Randroid fantasy of mile-long limos and gold-paved streets, but your fantasies have to be tempered with reality. It's not about personal responsibility or individual freedom -- it's about the simple fact that not everything (respect, sympathy, your life) can be bought. Money is a simpler thing to deal with than bartering. That is the extent of it. It shouldn't determine your existence, merely your luxuries.
    • zoombusa, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1"Lego to lay off 1,200, end U.S. production
      Toymaker, struggling to compete with gadgets, seeks to cut costs"

      But will they cut the prices of their products to consumers?

      HELL NO! The rich get richer and the workers get laid off!
      Boycott these companies that push production overseas and yet they never cut prices of their products.

      I don't care about globalization but when they do it just to line the pockets of the "fat cats" its BS and we as American consumers should let them know we disapprove by not giving them our money.
    • crazyc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@zoombusa

      Lego are struggling for their very survival - they have lost money for so many years, trying to postpone the inevitable. They fired 900 people in Denmark, a country which is a tiny fraction of the size of the US, and although everyone over here are worried, we know that it had to be done.
    • ChileanGoD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@Silby El Lego Libre!
    • GruntboyX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@kalisphoenix

      You need to RTFA and STFU. This company outsourced to America in the first place. Now that the company is under finicial trouble due to increased competition from substitute goods they need to cut costs. If you read the article this affects denmark 3 times more than us. But that is what happens when you dont vote with your dollar. The company goes out of business unless they find ways to cut costs and survive. You shouldnt be mad at the outsourcing, but be upset with parents who spend ungodly amounts of cash on gameboys and psp's and other electronics. The educational value of playing with legos is a lot better than playing metroid prime.

      And if you read the article this was insourcing being undone. IE would be like toyota or honda closing their domestic operations.

      Also, outsourcing is not just about cheep labor. if that was the case nothing would be produced domestically and companies woudl be flocking to overseas operations. Many times it has to do with local taxes and local resources available. IE if your exporting 90% of your product it doesnt make any sense to produce it in Kansas, but rather in an area with good access to shipping and located near your largest consumer. Outsourcing is a sign of weak demand for certain goods, and Stronger demand internationally for same good.

      And if you took an economic class you would understand better lasse-fair capitalism and that it truely works.

    • tinapaal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The problem is Lego isn't adapting well to time (most likely due to management). Instead of making toys that make more use of kids minds (for example MindStorms), Lego has focused on making fad toys (Star Wars Legos!) and even worse, parts that have virtually no concievable use outside of the project they are included in.
      http://www.definiteinfo.com/software/contractor-scheduling-software.html
  • giantAppleCore, on 10/12/2007, -33/+1Dupe - http://www.digg.com/robots/The_Future_of_Lego_s
    • elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4But that story had a title that gives NO information about the story. This one is better. Hence, that one doesn't get to the front page.
  • computermatt, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4that sortof sucks
  • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24The problem is Lego isn't adapting well to time (most likely due to management). Instead of making toys that make more use of kids minds (for example MindStorms), Lego has focused on making fad toys (Star Wars Legos!) and even worse, parts that have virtually no concievable use outside of the project they are included in.

    When I first heard of Lego Technic I got seriously excited, until I learned the severe limitation of parts and how expensive they were compared to ordinary legos, which is a complete shame. You'd think a toy company who's biggest expense is molded plastic could do better.

    Let's just hope Lego doesn't go the way of the Dodo.
    • heymark, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Will someone please think of the children?

      This is a very sad day indeed. My entire childhood existed within the universe of creating annoying complex structures out of Legos. Hell, my dad even built me a lego table, and we stored the peices in a trashcan. I agree with the parent post about innovation: They didn't push MindStorms enough, or gear anything else towards that direction. I would love to see them continue in the US, but theres only so much greedy corporations will do to satisfy the children.

      I guess this is a ripe chance for Lincoln Logs to make a comback, right?
    • RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Do you think children care about globalization? They only care about playing with toys and 99% of parents only care about buying those toys cheap.
    • MonkeyFit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Personally, I agree it's all the super specialized pieces that have been killing LEGO. Those pieces have almost no use outside the intended model unless you attempt to try to build something around that specific piece. But as far as technic pieces being severely limited? There are so many things you can do with technic pieces. The only problem is that you have to have a lot of them. But then you can still use almost all of them to creat some of the most complex models imaginable. But for a while, LEGO just kind of neglected technic, and I think that was a huge mistake. For the most part, the fad sets only appeal to the younger crowd. It's the technic sets that move and take hours to build that excite me. I recently visited D.C. and went to a LEGO store on my last day there. I spent $150 on that truck crane that's about 1800 pieces. I couldn't wait to build it, because I love stuff like that, and I was actually assembling it on the plane on my way back to Alaska. The thing is awesome.
    • geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"But as far as technic pieces being severely limited? There are so many things you can do with technic pieces. The only problem is that you have to have a lot of them. But then you can still use almost all of them to creat some of the most complex models imaginable."

      I'd love to think that's true, but after recieving over 10,000 of them, and putting them through their paces, I found quite quickly the limitations of Technic.

      First of all, because the pieces are made of somewhat soft plastic, they're very fragile. That means anything with a high amount of torque or weight is completely off limits to you. While longer pieces are better constructed to take the torque of the system, the smaller pieces such as gears and hubs simply can't stand up to it.

      Next, their compatibility with other Legos. While it has improved (more pieces with proper clearance holes are made), back when they first arrived on the scene, there was virtually no way to couple them to other Legos.

      Next, coupling them to each other. The parts are existant, but they're hard to get unless you actually request them to send them to you (and the price for a few couplings is absolutely outrageous). So a bunch of kits you get can't really do you as much good, simply because you can't put the pieces together without resorting to chewing gum, carved wood blocks, and heat guns (all of which I've used to stick legos to each other).

      Lastly, motion. As I've stated above, the parts don't handle stress well. This could be resolved by making the pieces stronger or by making them thicker, but above all it could be resolved by making better use of motive devices; lego motors cost nearly thirty bucks for a ten cent electric motor and a few cents of molded plastic, and worse of all, aren't even included in most sets. Mindstorms was great because it added a great deal of motion back to the devices, but as the engineers at lego spent more time on making the computer more sensible (light, pressure, etc) rather than more useful (stepper motor driver? more connectivity? smaller? lighter? rechargable integrated battery? etc.)

      I was very disappointed, as I had such high hopes after being a K-Nex fan (which if anyone remembers them, the parts are ridiculously strong for their size, shape and weight, even though the connectors were even more outrageous than Technic), but I still have a lot of fun with them and even use them to prototype things in my shop. Just be careful with the motors you pick to use with them, never build a model over about 2-3 meters or that weights more than a few kilos per meter, and pray the next generation MindStorms computer is more flexible than the current generation (or use an FPGA and cobble together a board as I've had to on some of my more adventureous.. failures).

      And hope that Lego doesn't bite it because their management is so braindead to fun.
    • MonkeyFit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You bring up some very good points. But I never found K'Nex to be that strong actually. They always seemed weak and flimsy to me, which is why I never really got into them.

      As for the technic peices not handling stress very well, how much stress are you putting on them, and also, if it seems weak and flimsy, try strengthening the model with more bracing. The crane I bought is very solid (sorry that I seem to be obsessed with it, but I just got it, it's new to me), and I was tossing around the chassis to other people without a single piece falling off, even when they dropped it. Mindstorms are based very heavily around technic and that seems to be what most of the people on digg enjoy the most.

      Then there was that car, I think it was the Super Street Sensation? It had the differential, engine, gull-wing doors, transmission, steering, suspension. I'm still angry at myself for integrating it into the rest of my collection. But it seems there is new management at LEGO, and maybe we'll see technic, as well as other categories, get better.
  • shirini, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11I think Lego is still a huge force in the toy industry but kids are losing their imagination I think especially with iPods and computers out there who wants to play with Legos anymore. Even little 3 year olds are on there using computers.
    • rodrigo74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5For millenia men have being saying the same, "this generation is f*cked up, ours was the last good one".

      Creative and inquisitive kids will always find ways to express their intelligence, just the materials used for that that change.
  • snak3st, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Wow, I didn't realize it's been that long since I've played with Lego. I guess children these days don't want to play with Lego anymore. Shame this is happening.

    Maybe Lego's popularity will surge again in other nations.
    • Silby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I just realized that too. I mean...I guess I maybe kind of did out grow them (maybe), but there was so much about legos that seems like it cannot be replaced. Legos are one of the main reasons I like engineering so much and without them, MIT will be 100% indians and asians (if it isn't already). Well...at least I can still shop online. And maybe another company will come to replace the lil plastic building blocks we all enjoyed.
  • Kman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Workers will now be replaced by Mindstorms.
  • ohhhL3ThaL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13legos are the only toys that dont make noise anymore and require batteries.

    God Bless.

    RIP Lego and Kenex
    • abiding99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Don't make noise? ... they are extremely loud, digging through a tub of legos is not stealth by any means.
  • lolwtfhaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9The sentiment seems to be legos suck now anyways... But does anyone else have fond memories of combing the pile for "another one of these"? and maybe bartering with your brothers/friends for specific pieces. Fighting for the little lights and translucent pieces was the best. Oh and it was great when someone was home sick from school and barfed all over the collection... they smelled funny for months even after washing...
    • mrkott3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes!
      I still have my huge Lego Collection!

      I had all of it built up, until some kid trashed all the stuff. Some of the specific parts for models went missing so sadly most of it didnt get rebuilt.
      Oh the fond memories.

      Sad to here they are moving offshore. (Doesnt affect me -Aussie).

      I agree with geminitojanus it is probably management not adapting too well. I never liked the gimmicky Star Wars etc models.
  • digitallysick, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2lego does need to work itself into technology more, i admire them for some of the things like mindstorm and all
  • RAT-Man, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It's a damn shame that it's come to this.
  • Snakedal337, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5I love my legos :(
  • docillenstein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Children are fickle customers and parents aiming to please them even more so - it was just a matter of time before building blocks became less interesting in the always-online era.
  • MarkByers, on 10/12/2007, -13/+6It's 'Lego bricks' not 'Legos'.

    "many use the words "Lego" (collectively) or "Legos" to refer to the bricks themselves, and even to any plastic bricks resembling Lego bricks, although the Lego Group discourages this as dilution of their trademark" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego

    Aarggh!
    • shirini, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10awwwwwww someone needs a "kleenex"
    • pat9000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You need to get out more.
    • Soniti, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2What. The. *****.

      Are you seriously going to try and correct basically every person whose ever said legos? Please post again and tell me you were just joking- you ****ing wikipedia fag.

      My mind is clouded with rage towards you.

      ~Soniti

  • NITROSLICK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That's a shame. I loved playing with LEGOS when I was a kid. The problem might not be in their toys, but they way they market them. I grew up as a product of the '90s and I remember seeing LEGO ads on TV all the time. I truly hope this is just a speed bump and not the beginning of the end.
  • ngageguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That is really too bad they are moving out of the USA. Maybe if they are Danish, they should move back home and employ their own people. Nah, it could never happen.
    • vuzman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3RTFA. A lot of Lego's manufacturing was actually done here in Denmark. Many of those jobs are moved to the Czech Republic (our Mexico) at the same time as this is happening in the US. 900 of the 1200 jobs are lost in Denmark.
  • daddiogig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1So they move their operations to countries where labor is cheap. Will they reduce the price of these little plastic bastards then? My grandson wants nothing but bionics right now and that makes birthdays and holidays expensive as hell. A "cheap" kit is around $30. Why so expensive when compared to other toys?? The same reason that they are moving to Mexico and Czech - they're greedy bastards.
    • vuzman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Quality costs more. You can find cheap Lego knock-offs, but none of the knock-offs have comparable quality. Both the durability of the bricks and the precision-moulding is unique
    • diggscreenname, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Quality costs more"

      Nonsense! Its a plastic freakin block. It shouldn't cost $30 for a small collection of them. This is their main problem. I buy them every so often but they cost to much to get on a regular basis. The bottom line is they need to drop their prices.
  • VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To be fair, the U.S. government does not make it cheap or easy to operate a business. And I'm not just talking about wages.

    Every generation has said that the world is going to hell, I'm just afraid that this time it's for real.
  • sirius83, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This truly is a sad day. I had uncountable lego sets, specializing in the space sets. I had all sorts of elaborate designs...maybe I should pull out the old bricks and rebuild them for display purposes...it was a massive part of my childhood.
  • hayden.evans, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2this is terrible! wat guy here didnt play with legos when they were younger. how sad.
    • notdarkyet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2probably the guy who didn't spell what without the h
  • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2At least they are still making them. How many companies have both revolutionised the toy market, improved the imagination of several generations, and been around for around 80 years and havn't already resorted to cheap labour?
  • qxcvz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is one of the saddest days of my life. I'm falling to pieces.
    • skyhighrockets, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ha ha ha. Punny.
    • navinjohnson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't worry qxcvz, Lego will pick up the pieces and rebuild.
  • skyhighrockets, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well, maybe if they didn't charge you a fortune for pieces of plastic...
    • vuzman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Quality costs more. You can find cheap Lego knock-offs, but none of the knock-offs have comparable quality. Both the durability of the bricks and the precision-moulding is unique.
    • diggscreenname, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Again these are just plastic blocks not gold blocks. Their prices are too high.
  • deanlowe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Like I always say "Mexican machines work cheaper than American ones."
    In a few years, Americans will be illegally crossing over to Mexico to get jobs.
  • nailbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2have you seen the crap they stuff in lego boxes these days?
    they're in the action figure and diorama business. they are dumbed down simplistic representations of fads composed of strange esoteric pieces that have no other possible purpose than the intended model.

    there is no room at all for creativity with these new lego kits. you can't take a kit for one thing and build another, so there's no point in getting it. i remember when i was a kid and i got the technic boxes, i didn't even build the intended model ever, i just wanted the parts. whoever they hired to be creative let the whole company down, and they are responsible for their failure.
  • MajorMauser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just go out and buy some Lego for your Kids/yourself this weekend. I can't fathom how lame parents are not getting a set for thier kids. I grew up loving these things.
    • srodolff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well besides the fact that I'm finding Legos is places that I'd least suspect them.

      And uttering the words....."How did THAT get in THERE?".......lol
  • Wolfboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@zoombusa -- "But will they cut the prices of their products to consumers?"

    If they want to sell to Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will force them to cut prices. Otherwise, Wal-Mart will drop them and they will be blocked from the No. 1 seller (in terms of total stores and toys sold) in the U.S.
  • cranium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1When I was a kid, I had a huge box of legos, there were a lot of significant things I remember building. They were fairly inexpensive at the time. Now, you get a box with 15 blocks in it for 10 bucks, if you get it on sale.

    Obviously, the execs where trying to cash in their brand equity. Now that it's gone, here come the consequences. Oh well.
  • z.unit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I loved building things as a kid, my brother and i started sorting our collection last summer but never finished (it may still be all over the basement floor lol). I hope Lego stays around for my future children's sake!
  • AVulcanJedi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"it's" = it + is. Sheesh.
  • Momoru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They blame new fangled electronics, but Nintendo came along when I was a kid and I still loved playing with Legos. I think its a combination of recent legos sucking, and parents not encouraging imagination as much.
  • mousky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@kalisphoenix: "Outsourcing is a decent proof that laissez-faire capitalism is a load of *****."

    No, your post is a load of *****. Capitalism is not perfect but it is the best system we have. Don't like it? Build a time machine and go back to experience the wonderful lives people had under communism and socialism in Eastern Europe. Yup, it sure was fun to line up to get one or two loaves of bread. It was also fun to line up for a couple of hours at the butcher.

    "you'd see that a small business cannot possibly compete with a large one in today's economy and society."

    Yet, the majority of jobs are created by small businesses. Yet, plenty of small businesses not only compete but thrive. Yet, some people still decide to create their own business. Its like when Home Depot came to town and all the smaller hardware stores were opposed. But a funny thing happened along the way, business at the local hardware stores went up after the Home Depot opened. Why? Because instead of dealing with the traffic and crowds at the Home Depot, they went to their local hardware store to pickup smaller things. No economics textbook will ever say that a small business cannot compete with a large company. It's not all about price. You have to factor in convenience, knowledge, etc.
  • jibber, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Why Mexico - Here's why

    http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=5773
  • srodolff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The devil is in the details:

    “This is the last essential element in the restructuring of the group’s supply line"

    Translation: Mexicans work cheaper.

    Legos aren't going anywhere. Just where they're made changes.

    And nothing can suck up more of my time than sitting in front of a bucket of Legos and building something.

    Thank God, I have a 7 year old.
  • abiding99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1down with mega blocks!!!
  • crashflow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Lego disassembles factory."
    "Town Economy in pieces."
    "Workers left to rebuild lives brick by brick"

    Hope they maintain the quality of the product and lower the price.
    great toy, much happy memories.
  • brickhead12, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0This is absolutely sad,the first ever brick i placed onto another changed my life forever,i still have that tub of lego right under my bed,in perfect condition.
    sad to see many kids going for the awful Mega Bloks these days
    lego
    R.I.P
  •  

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