Sony to close Japan plant, lay off 100 contract workers

Sony Corp will merge two of its wholly owned manufacturing subsidiaries, resulting in the closure of an equipment plant north of Tokyo and the eventual layoff of about 100 contract workers, the company said on Friday.

The move, which takes effect on April 1 next year, comes as analysts and investors urge the company to pull off a drastic restructuring of its loss-making television division.

Sony Manufacturing Systems, which makes factory equipment, will be absorbed by Sony EMCS, the electronics giant's main domestic manufacturing subsidiary, which makes items such as televisions and computers at various sites around Japan.

The 411 regular workers at Sony Manufacturing Systems will be kept on at a different site, but 100 non-regular workers will not have their contracts renewed.

The company is considering selling off the buildings and land at the Saitama site, about 60 km (36 miles) north of Tokyo, a Sony spokesman said.



Source : reuters  [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Blackberry RIM Cuts 2,000 Jobs

Research in Motion said it will cut 2,000 jobs (approximately 11% of the company’s workforce) and reorganize upper management.

The company’s COO Don Morrison will retire, and Thorsten Heins will take over the expanded role of COO, product and sales.

The move comes after weak financial results in Q1 and an even worse outlook for the future. As a result of the bleak Q1 report, RIM’s sharestook a beating, dropping 20% overnight.

Once a dominant force in the smartphone market, RIM recently fell to third place behind Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. The imminent layoffs are necessary to keep the company financially sound, but RIM will have to rethink its entire smartphone and tablet strategy to catch up with its rivals.

Source : Mashable
 [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Cisco warns of sales miss, eyes $1 billion savings

Cisco Systems Inc warned that it will fare worse this quarter than Wall Street had feared, and laid out plans for global job cuts as it struggles to revive growth.
Shares of Cisco fell 3 percent after the world's largest networking equipment maker projected nearly flat sales growth this quarter.
CEO John Chambers, who admitted last month that the Silicon Valley bellwether had lost its way, cautioned that Cisco's fiscal year starting August would also not live up to the company's previous growth expectations.
The company is preparing a round of layoffs around the world, aiming to cut annual expenses by $1 billion, Chambers told analysts on a Wednesday conference call.
Most of the cutbacks would be done by the end of the company's fiscal first quarter, though Chambers would not be drawn on their scale. Employees hurt by the layoffs would know by the end of the summer.
"Cisco is a very strong company in a healthy market with a few problematic areas," he said.
But his optimism failed to impress shareholders, who sent Cisco shares down in late trade after the weak guidance. Cisco's sales warning obliterated an initial 4-percent lift after the company posted quarterly earnings that exceeded low expectations.
"Cisco is in a period of transition. There's a very negative camp that believes that Cisco is in a long decline ... which is why the stock is so inexpensive," said Evercore Partners analyst Alkesh Shah.
The results come as Chambers works to turn around the Silicon Valley bellwether.
Since the rare admission, he has trimmed the company's bloated management structure, offered early retirement to some employees, killed the Flip camcorder and laid off 550 workers. Chambers said he would decide on the next round of layoffs very quickly.
"Each time we've done this in the past, we've done it crisply and emerged out of it stronger. ... We want to do it surgically instead of with a blunt instrument," he said.
"We were all here for the last couple of weeks, 9:30 at night, although the pizza wasn't too good."
ZEROING IN ON SWITCHES
Cisco warned that overall fourth-quarter revenue would be flat to just 2 percent higher than a year earlier, implying a range of $10.84 billion to $11.05 billion, below expectations for $11.59 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Cisco shares slid 1 percent to $17.72 after rising as much as 4.2 percent to $18.53 from a Nasdaq close of $17.78.
During the conference call, analysts grilled Chambers about his plans for reviving his bread-and-butter business of selling the plumbing of the Internet and corporate networks. They zeroed in on its switching business, where sales fell 9 percent in the third quarter after sliding 7 percent in the second quarter.
Chief Financial Officer Frank Calderoni told Reuters he could not say when Cisco's switching business would grow again.
Before the company gave out weaker-than-expected guidance investors had been hoping the results would beat forecasts.
The company reported profit, excluding items, of 42 cents per share, for the fiscal third quarter ended April 30, beating the average analyst forecast of 37 cents according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
"This relieves a bit of investor concern in the near term," said Gleacher & Co analyst Brian Marshall. "While April results look decent relative to expectations, we've longer-term issues the company needs to address."
It delivered a non-GAAP gross margin of 63.9 percent, ahead of its forecast of 62 to 63 percent.
Net income fell to $1.8 billion, or 33 cents per share, from $2.2 billion, or 37 cents per share, a year earlier.



Source : Reuters
 [tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Microsoft cuts 800 jobs, completes layoff plan

Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday it is cutting a further 800 jobs across its operations, on top of 5,000 jobs already eliminated under a plan to reduce costs that was announced in January.
A spokesman for the world's largest software firm said the latest job cuts are spread across the company's global operations, but about 200 are in and around its headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft originally had planned to cut 5,000 jobs, or about 5 percent out of 96,000, before June 2010. The Microsoft spokesman said that plan has been expanded with the new layoffs and is now complete, well ahead of schedule.
As of October 23, Microsoft had 91,005 employees worldwide, according to its website.


Source : Reuters
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Intel Defies Layoff Trend – Spends $7 Billion Protecting 7,000 Jobs

At a time when U.S. employers are laying off workers in record numbers, Intel Corp. (INTC) announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it would spend $7 billion over the next two years to build advanced manufacturing facilities while safeguarding 7,000 high-wage jobs.

To support the deployment of Intel’s cutting-edge 32-nanometer (nm) manufacturing technology, Intel President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said the company will upgrade four existing manufacturing sites in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico to build faster, smaller chips that consume less energy.

The new funding represents the world’s biggest chipmaker’s largest-ever investment for a new manufacturing process and furthers its efforts to distance itself from its would-be rivals.

“We’re investing in America to keep Intel and our nation at the forefront of innovation,” Otellini said in a speech at the Economic Club in Washington, Bloomberg News reported.

“We’re investing in America to keep Intel and our nation at the forefront of innovation

Mr. Otellini’s speech emphasised that Intel was intent on making major investments when most other companies were being forced to scale back.

Boldness is in Intel’s DNA, as the company is known for its strategy of investing during downturns to give it leverage when economies emerge from recession. Since 2002 it has invested $50 billion in capital and research and development in the United States, where it maintains 75% of its production capacity.

Intel’s latest high-performance technology - code-named “Westmere” - will be used in building chip circuitry 32 billionths of a meter across. The tiny, atomic level structures will be 71% smaller than Intel’s current generation of 45 nanometer processors. The chips will also incorporate additional graphics capabilities.

“This is the level of technology where we find the sweet spot for a bunch of new markets we have been aiming ourselves at,” Otellini said in an interview with Forbes. “You’ll start seeing more thin and light products, Apple Air kinds of products,” referring to Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) MacBook Air, the world’s thinnest notebook computer which is powered by an Intel chip.

The move could help Intel grab more market share from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD). Intel had 82% of the market for x86 processors - the ones found in most servers, desktop computers and notebooks - in the fourth quarter of 2008, up from 76% a year earlier, according to Mercury Research. It will also help Intel’s efforts to penetrate other markets such as embedded devices and cell phones.

For its part, AMD won’t shift to 32-nanometer technology until the end of 2010, with volume production beginning in 2011. Although other chip makers like IBM (IBM), Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd.(ADR: CHRT ), are sharing 32-nanometer chip technology and could ramp up production as early as the second half of this year, none of them can challenge Intel for control of the PC processor market.

The move continues Intel’s march to the relentless beat of Moore’s Law, which says integrated computer circuits would double in performance every 24 months, coined by co-founder, Gordon Moore in 1965.

Intel has kept its founder’s legacy intact, setting the pace by building the fastest and smallest chips since the integrated circuit board was invented in 1958.

That provides a powerful advantage to the company, as tech-savvy consumers keep buying new generations of chips to run the latest gaming and other power munching software coming to the market.

“Each time we make this kind of transition people go ‘Big deal, I don’t need more power,’” semiconductor industry analyst Nathan Brookwood told Forbes. “But two years later if you try to take away their newer, faster machines you’ll have to pry it out of their cold, dead hands.”

Source : Money Morning
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Cisco May Cut 2,000 Jobs. But That’s Not A Layoff.

Cisco CEO John Chambers, in pursuing another billion dollars of expense reduction, just said on the networking gear company’s earnings call that the company could reduce its work force by 1,500 to 2,000 people.

But he’s not considering a layoff, he said. A companywide layoff, by his definition, would constitute 10% of the work force, or 6,700 of the company’s worldwide workforce of 67,000 employees.

He says he hopes to avoid “large downsizing events.”

But over the next couple of months, the company hopes to wring out another $500 million of annual, ongoing expense.

Already, he said, the company has pushed its annual ongoing expenses down $1.5 billion, from what had been a $15 billion run rate.

A good example from the progenitor of video conferencing systems and services it calls Telepresence: Employee travel. Travel expenses have been driven down from $7,900 per employee per year to $3,400.

And that’s a permanent reduction, he said.

Source : zdnet
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Chartered Semicon to cut 500 jobs in Singapore

Chipmaker Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, which is forecasting its biggest loss ever of US$147mil (RM529mil) this quarter, will retrench over 500 workers here to cut costs.

The job cuts will be across all levels, “from manufacturing to managerial to executive,” said its chief executive officer Chia Song Hwee on Friday.

The mainboard-listed company, which makes chips for companies like Qualcomm and Broadcom, has six manufacturing plants here.

Laid-off Singaporean employees who have been with the company for three years or more will receive one month’s pay for every year of service; those with shorter terms would get half-a-month’s pay for each year of service.

The company will also be giving out an ex-gratia payment to these employees, and has engaged consultants to help them with outplacement, said Chia, stressing that it had this step as a last resort.

He pointed out that utilisation had fallen to 59% for the quarter ended Dec 31 due to the financial crisis and expects this to fall further to 37%.

“Unfortunately business conditions continue to deteriorate, and with utilisation below 40%, despite the (government’s recently announced) jobs credit scheme, resizing is unavoidable,” he said.

Under the scheme, the Singapore government would subsidise part of a worker’s wage.

The retrenchment benefits will cost Chartered US$8mil, but will help it save US$16mil over the year.

The latest retrenchment exercise brings the total job cuts to 1,300, or 18% of its previous workforce. In December, Chartered retrenched about 270 contract staff; it had also “exited poor performers” and frozen hiring, not replacing those who quit voluntarily, said Chia.

Chartered, the world’s third-largest maker of customised chips, announced the dismal outlook and job cuts on Friday morning before the market opened, together with its financial results for its fourth quarter and financial year.

It posted a net loss of US$92.6mil for its financial year ended Dec 31, on the back of revenues of US$1.66bil. It booked a US$101.7mil profit in 2007.

The financial turmoil had resulted in an “unprecedented rate of decline in semiconductor demand worldwide,” said chief financial officer George Thomas in a statement.

For now, the company is “very much focused on near term priorities to make sure we weather the downturn,” said Chia.

It is also working on other cost-cutting measures including reducing its capital expenditure by 35% to US$375mil this year, its lowest level since 2003, to “conserve liquidity.”

Even though cost is a concern, the company has decided to maintain its research and developing spending.

Chartered, said Chia, has to make sure “our position is not weakened ... if customers lose confidence (in Chartered), opportunities will not come” back when the economy recovers.

He did not rule out the possibility of further job cuts if the situation worsens. --

Source : TheStar
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

AOL to lay off 700 employees

AOL will lay off 10 percent of its workers, about 700 people, to help it better deal with the deepening economic recession, according to a companywide e-mail sent on Wednesday.

The reductions, which will be completed by the end of March, will be accompanied by a consolidation of business groups and facilities as the company focuses on its three core businesses: Platform-A advertising, People Networks social networking, and MediaGlow content, AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco wrote in the e-mail, obtained by CNET News. Employees will also not be getting merit raises this year, he said.

"Reducing our workforce is never easy, particularly in the current climate, but our goal in doing this is to provide our core businesses the resources they need to thrive," Falco wrote. "Please know that, as always, we'll be doing everything we can to help and support those affected, including offering severance packages and other services."

Kara Swisher first reported the layoffs and reprinted the memo on her Boomtown blog.

An AOL spokesman said the company had no comment.

A decline in ad revenue at AOL helped lead to flat revenue and earnings at parent company Time Warner in its last quarterly financial report. Time Warner reportedly was in talks last year with Yahoo on a sale of AOL.

Source : Digital Media
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Citrix, Jabil Cut 3,500 Jobs Combined as Technology Sales Wane

Citrix Systems Inc. and Jabil Circuit Inc. plan to reduce their workforces by a combined 3,500 to cut costs as the recession hurts demand for technology products.

Software maker Citrix, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said it will cut 500 jobs, or 10 percent of the total. St. Petersburg, Florida-based Jabil, a manufacturer of electronics, will eliminate 3,000 positions.

Technology businesses including Microsoft Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. are slashing jobs as they adapt to slowing demand for software and computers. Through yesterday, U.S. companies had announced more than 519,895 job cuts since Nov. 1, according to Bloomberg data.

Citrix, which makes networking programs, forecast a 5 percent drop in revenue in the first quarter from a year earlier. Operating margin will be little changed in the period, the company said. For all of 2009, sales will be little changed, with the operating margin increasing as much as 1 percent.

The job cuts will save about $50 million in employee expenses yearly before taxes, Citrix said. Most of the pretax expenses of as much as $23 million will come in the first quarter, the company said.

Jabil, which makes mobile phones for Nokia Oyj, said its cuts will save about $55 million annually. The company, which has 85,000 employees, said it will have $65 million in restructuring costs over the next two years.

Citrix dropped $1.69, or 7 percent, to $22.50 in extended trading after closing at $24.19 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares tumbled 38 percent last year. Jabil was unchanged in late trading and rose 4 percent to $6.36 today on the New York Stock Exchange.

Source : Bloomberg
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

SAP plans job cuts, despite solid earnings

Even coming off a healthy quarter, business software titan SAP says it needs to cut costs for the coming year--and as elsewhere in the tech sector, that means job cuts.

SAP said Wednesday that for the fourth quarter, it had net income of 850 million euros ($1.1 billion) on revenue of 3.5 billion euros. Those figures represent a gain of 13 percent in net income and 8 percent in revenue year over year.

Revenue in software and software-related services at the Walldorf, Germany-based company was 2.7 billion euros, up 8 percent year over year.

For the full year, SAP's net income was 1.89 billion euros, down 2 percent from 2007, while revenue was 11.57 billion euros, up 13 percent.

But a troubling and unpredictable economic climate means that SAP, like many other companies inside and outside of high tech, will continue tightening its belt. SAP said Wednesday that it plans to trim its worldwide workforce by about 3,000 positions by the end of 2009--from 51,500 down to 48,500 jobs.

SAP said that the job cuts, at least some of which it expects to come through attrition, will lead to annual savings of 300 million euros to 350 million euros starting in 2010.

Here's how SAP sees the business environment for the coming year:

The Company expects the 2009 operating environment to remain challenging. In addition, 2009 will no longer include the positive effects from the acquisition of Business Objects, and the 2009 first-half results will be a difficult comparison to the strong results reported in the first half of 2008, which was prior to the economic crisis that disrupted the global markets in the third quarter of 2008.

For those reasons, SAP did not provide a specific outlook for software and software-related service revenue for full-year 2009.

Source : Cnet
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

IBM quietly cuts thousands of jobs

With the recession forcing tech companies to announce thousands of layoffs, IBM Corp. is joining the fray — but not advertising it.

The Armonk, N.Y.-based company has cut thousands of jobs over the past week, including positions in sales and the software and hardware divisions. IBM says the cuts are simply part of its ongoing efforts to watch costs, and the company won't release specific numbers, even as reports of firings stream in from IBM facilities across the country.

Workers have reported layoffs in Tucson, Ariz.; San Jose, Calif.; Rochester, Minn.; Research Triangle Park, N.C.; East Fishkill, N.Y.; Austin, Texas; and Burlington, Vt.

Meanwhile, other tech companies such as Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Texas Instruments Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Google Inc. have all publicly revealed job cuts as part of their strategies for riding out the economic crisis. More than 20,000 jobs will be lost from those companies alone.

One of IBM's biggest rivals — Hewlett-Packard Co. — is also laying people off. HP is shedding 24,600 jobs, nearly 8 percent of its 320,000-employee work force, as it digests the acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp.

IBM says it doesn't have to reveal the number of jobs it is cutting, since the Securities and Exchange Commission requires companies to disclose only "material" events. And IBM considers its job cuts a regular part of the company's business model, since thousands of jobs are cut every year but are usually added back in other places.

Because of that, IBM contends it doesn't have to break out its layoffs in regulatory filings unless it suddenly changes course and makes substantially more or fewer job cuts.

That's why while IBM's head count keeps growing, topping 400,000 at the end of 2008, laid-off IBM workers have flooded online job boards with complaints about the company's stealth cuts.

One estimate of IBM's recent cuts put the number at more than 4,000 jobs lost since IBM's fourth-quarter earnings announcement last week. Those earnings contained an unexpected surprise: IBM forecast at least $9.20 per share in profit in 2009. IBM shares are up more than 10 percent since then.

To get the cost savings that will help spur the higher profits, IBM appears to have acted quickly. The estimate of at least 4,000 jobs cut comes from AllianceAtIBM, a union that is affiliated with the Communications Workers of America and represents a small number of IBM workers.

The Associated Press reviewed one document sent to laid-off workers that identified some of the positions that were cut. Employees weren't identified by name, but positions and the workers' ages were listed. The document listed nearly 3,000 jobs.

In Vermont, IBM remained tightlipped about layoffs at its Essex Junction facility, but state Labor Commissioner Patricia Moulton Powden said the total number would be less than 500.

IBM recently employed 5,300 workers at the Essex Junction plant, down from 8,500 in 2001.

Jim Gallo, 48, who said he worked in IBM software support for 27 years, was among those let go from that facility. Gallo, drinking a Grey Goose and ginger ale at nearby Lincoln Inn on Tuesday, said he hadn't told his four children yet.

He said he has until Feb. 26 to find another job in IBM, but he put his chances at "slim to none." Gallo said he gets six months' pay as part of a severance package.

"It's too bad they're not doing what they were doing before. They offered some sweet packages for people to jump out," he said.

IBM's ongoing labor adjustments have led the company to add bodies in cheaper and higher-growth parts of the world, like India.

In 2007, the last full year for which detailed employment numbers are available, 121,000 of IBM's 387,000 workers were in the U.S., down slightly from the year before. Meanwhile, staffing in India has jumped from just 9,000 workers in 2003 to 74,000 workers in 2007.

Source : AFP
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Bloody Monday: Over 71,400 jobs lost

The final week of January began with a bloodbath for the job market, as over 71,400 more cuts were announced on Monday alone.

At least six companies from manufacturing and service industries announced cost-cutting initiatives that included slashing thousands of jobs.

More than 200,000 job cuts have been announced so far this year, according to company reports. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost over 2008, the highest yearly job-loss total since 1945.

"It's all about the consumer, and the consumer's been hit hard," said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics. "It's a vicious circle as weakness begets layoffs, which beget more spending weakness."

Construction machinery manufacturer Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500) said Monday it will cut 20,000 jobs amid a "very challenging global business environment." The company had already planned to cut 15,000 workers since the fourth quarter of 2008, but added another 5,000, bringing the total to 20,000.

Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500) said in an earnings report it would cut 10% of its staff of 81,900 and close five of its manufacturing plants. And a second round of cuts will shed about 15% of employees from the combined Pfizer/Wyeth staff of 120,000. That makes a total of 26,000 jobs lost. The company already cut 4,700 jobs in 2008.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S, Fortune 500) will cut a total of about 8,000 jobs by March 31, the company said in a release. The telecommunications company's plan is to reduce internal and external labor costs by about $1.2 billion on an annual basis.

Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500), the world's largest home improvement retailer, announced Monday it will eliminate its EXPO design center business and cut 7,000 associates, or approximately 2% of the company's total workforce. The company blamed a lack of demand for big ticket design and decor projects.

Texas Instruments (TXN, Fortune 500) said it will slash its workforce by 3,400 employees to cope with weak demand and the slowing economy. More than half of those cuts will be layoffs while "voluntary retirements and departures" will make up the rest.

Dutch financial group ING said Monday it will take a 2008 loss of $1.3 billion and cut 7,000 jobs. The company could not comment on where the cuts would take place. ING employs around 130,000 people across 50 countries.

Deere& Co. (DE, Fortune 500) , the world's top farm-equipment maker, said it would cut nearly 700 jobs between factories in Brazil and Iowa.

The job cuts across sectors didn't surprise Brusca, as nearly all are weak, he said.

"The services sector is shedding jobs at a horrific pace, because that's where most of the jobs are," Brusca said. "When the consumer is in tough shape it's hard for business to do well, because it all depends on consumption or investments."

Continuing the scary trend

The cuts mark a horrific start to the week, and a brutal start to 2009. In the previous week, around 40,000 cuts were announced across multiple industries.

Wednesday, in particular, was littered with a slew of job cuts: BHP Billiton, Clear Channel Communications, Intel, Rohm and Haas Co., UAL Corp. and Williams-Sonoma all announced job cuts totaling over 27,000 positions.

Schlumberger said Friday that it will cut 5,000 jobs worldwide, with 1,000 of the cuts taking place in North America.

Also last week, Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would cut about 800 jobs, or 10% of its worldwide staff in the upcoming weeks, while Microsoft unveiled its plan to cut up to 5,000 jobs - 5.5% of its global workforce.

Outlook: A recovery in sight?

Brusca said he agreed with many economists' predictions that the recession will end after the second quarter of 2009. Americans might feel the job market start to bounce back a bit sooner than expected, he said.

"These recessions are like geometry," Brusca said. "It looks like we'll have a V-shaped cycle, in that we're going into this with very sharp losses. This intense-phase recession will probably recover fairly quickly, with the job market coming out it at the same angle it came in."

In the short term, the economy and the job market are in trouble, Brusca said. But "it doesn't look like the bottom is falling out of the economy," he said.

And there's a silver lining to the gloomy clouds over America's economy.

"The good news is it's so bad right now that we will have a definite, noticeable recovery when it comes," Brusca said. "We're getting a lot of adjustment out of the way early."

Source : CNN
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Intel to shut four plants, lay off 6,000

Analysts laid the blame for Intel's actions on weak PC sales combined with tight-fisted consumers choosing low-cost models such as netbooks. They also said impressive new CPUs from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. were a factor.

Monday's CPU price cuts by Intel , as much as 40% on some high-end desktop chips, were aimed at "stimulating demand to consume [chip] inventory," said Ian Lao, an analyst with In-Stat . "Fabs are already scaling back but there is always a buffer effect from when a change is started until we see that change on the street. They are trying to match the fab capacity to help limit job cuts if possible."

The price cuts were just the beginning. On Wednesday, Intel said it would close close two assembly and test facilities -- one in Penang, Malaysia, and another in Cavite, the Philippines. It said it would also stop production at two wafer-production plants: Fab 20, an older 200mm wafer fabrication plant in Hillsboro, Oregon; and D2, a facility in Santa Clara, California.

The changes will affect between 5,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide, Intel said. Not all those employees will lose their jobs, however, as Intel plans to offer some of them positions at other facilities, the company said.

Intel will gradually close the facilities between now and the end of 2009, it said. The closures are designed to "align its manufacturing capacity to current market conditions," the company said.

Like many technology companies, Intel has been hit hard by the U.S. recession, which also has affected the global economy. For its fourth quarter ended Dec. 27, 2008, Intel's profit plunged 90 percent from a year earlier, falling short of Wall Street estimates.

Intel's layoffs and plant closures follow even larger restructuring at AMD. The chipmaker said in the fall it would spin off its chipmaking facilities and focus on chip design. On Monday, AMD announced it would cut 1,100 jobs , or 9% of its workforce.

Both layoff announcements follow data last week that showed big trouble in the PC market. Shipments of PCs in the key fourth quarter fell 0.4% year-over-year, according to IDC Corp. PC shipments in the U.S. actually fell 3.5% year-over-year in the fourth quarter.

Stingy consumers dragged dollar sales down even more. Q4 revenue fell up to 20% year-over-year , the worst drop-off since mid-2001, said Gartner Inc.

Lao said the PC market downturn, while anticipated, was bigger than expected. "Even in the summer, sales were still ok. Then the floor started to drop out from under everything," he said.

The newly-lean AMD is also posing a challenge to Intel the first time in awhile, said Lao, with PC makers showing interest in AMD's low-priced notebook CPUs as well as its new high-end Phenom II CPUs. Even with its 40% cut to its Core 2 Quad Q9650 processor, Intel's chips remain pricier than its Phenom II rivals.

Intel is responding. "I do not see this as a big 'kill AMD' move, although there is definitely a component in it," Lao said. "Any time they can take a shot as a bonus, why not?"

As much as it might like, Intel won't cut chip prices in order to stimulate the PC market, said Stephen Baker , an analyst with NPD Group Inc. "It's hard to see them [Intel] being any more aggressive on pricing, as it brings the specter of the government around," Baker said.

Intel has been repeatedly investigated for alleged anti-competitive and monopolistic practices. It is currently appealing a long-running European Union anti-trust investigation.

Also, PC makers "don't need any more product," said Baker, who likens the weak demand for PCs to the real estate market, which is very slow despite the abundance of cheap foreclosed homes. "[PC makers] don't want to hold [chip] inventory, nobody wants to hold inventory," he said.

While consumers showed their preference for lower-priced PC models during Christmas, Baker doesn't expect PC makers to respond by breaking any new ground.

"How much lower can you get than $299 for a desktop PC?" Baker said. "If you did, I'm not sure you could stoke a lot of incremental demand."

Lao agrees that consumers are unlikely to see cheaper PCs. Intel's most-recent price cuts will be eaten up by PC makers, wholesalers and retailers,which are all suffering due to weak sales volume, he said.

Source : NetWorkWorld
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

IBM confirms job layoffs, won't say how many ~ Maybe 16,000!

Although he wouldn't specify where or how many, an IBM spokesperson today confirmed to Betanews that IBM is sending out pink slips this week. An IBM employee union known as Alliance@IBM is predicting 16,000 job cuts.

On the Alliance Web site, IBM employees reported yesterday that the layoffs are already happening in IBM software and distribution divisions in the US and Canada.

"I won't comment on the number" of job layoffs, replied Doug Shelton, an IBM spokesperson, when Betanews reached him by phone today. "But there have been some notifications," he went on, adding that layoff notices have gone out this week.

The jobs are being cut despite IBM's announcement on Tuesday of a 12 percent rise in fourth quarter earnings.

"We got hit today...10% of the group got let go...and after record quarter and record year," says one post to the Alliance Web site, put up soon after IBM's financial results were reported.

"28 out of 45 cut," according to a another entry, from Austin, Texas. "Young and old, top and bottom performers. Never show me great 4Q numbers again."

But Shelton suggested today that job layoffs are always a possibility at IBM, citing a perceived requirement to stay "flexible" to the market.

"IBM continuously evaluates its mix of skills and resources and makes changes as needed" to skills and resources, Shelton told Betanews. "We constantly assess our clients' needs. We need to be in a position to have some flexibility to the changes in the needs" of the company's clients.

Earlier in the week, an IBM spokesperson reportedly declined comment to The Wall Street Journal about the then-rumored layoffs.

In a statement issued on Monday, Lee Conrad, national coordinator of the Alliance, urged IBM "not to go forward with a new round of job cuts and to stop the off-shoring of US workers' jobs."

Source : BetaNews
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Microsoft may cut 8,000 jobs as profit drops

Being an international company with their hands in nearly every aspect of modern computing and Internet services, Microsoft has found that they are not immune to a weak economy, and apparently job cuts are in order. This is prompted by missed profit targets and a significantly lower than expected profit for Q4. Sliding sales in business software, video games, desktop PCs and more, all of which Microsoft plays some part in, have affected the company enough to warrant cutting upwards of 8,000 jobs within the next few months. That represents up to 8% of their workforce, which is significant for a company as large as Microsoft.

This isn't entirely what you'd expect from a company that was prepared to plunk down billions of dollars to acquire Yahoo just a few months ago. The cuts may not stop there, either, with rumors that they may be looking at other cost reductions going forward. Microsoft isn't speaking openly about their plans, nor did they mention if a large job cut or smaller job cuts over a long period of time are in the works. The only for sure thing is that Microsoft is definitely hurting, with their stock value being cut nearly in half over the past year.

The company is often considered to have ample cash reserves, but the bottom line is that Microsoft is aware they aren't making money like they want anymore, so we can probably expect changes to come from them soon.


Source : TechSpot
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Job cuts at Google India

Google India, the India arm of Mountain View, California-based internet company Google Inc., has terminated the jobs of between 30 and 40 employees from its finance department, according to at a Googler and a recruiter with the development, who did not wish to be identified.


The 40 comprising financial analysts and chartered accountants among others are largely terminated contractors or temporary workers and some Googlers. According to the first person, the termination dates for these laid off employees are different with the last termination date being January 31.


In a response to a query on layoffs, Google spokesperson said, "We have been reducing our dependence on contractors for over a year across locations. In rare cases, where restructuring impacts Googlers, we actively work on providing them with other opportunities within Google. In India, Google continues to hire to need. We are unable to comment on any specific initiative."


The finance department at Google India handles the internet company's accounting and financial transactions. Google India has a total headcount of around 3,000 employees. According to the second person, "Google India is in the middle of restructuring this financial unit and care is being taken to retain as many Googlers as possible."


The latest termination comes close on the heels of news of a SEC filing on Decemeber 16 from Google showing a significant cutback in temporary employees to cut costs. Earlier, on January 14, in a statement posted on the company's official blog, Laszlo Bock, vice president, people operations said that Google will lay off around 100 employees from its recruitment team and terminate its contract with external hiring agencies, the first significant cutback in its 11-year history.


Source : LiveMint
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Microsoft expected to cut jobs as profit weakens

Microsoft Corp is expected to post a quarterly profit that misses its own target and announce thousands of job cuts this week as the global economic slump hurts even the technology industry's biggest players.

When the leading software maker reports fiscal second quarter results on Thursday, investors are likely to press for comments on its outlook and on Yahoo Inc, whose search business has been the object of Microsoft's desires.

The report comes against a backdrop of a wounded global economy that has stifled demand for everything from personal computers to business software and video games, all markets in which Microsoft is a significant player.

"All eyes are on the forecast," said Jefferies & Co analyst Katherine Egbert. "Expectations for the guidance are pretty low."

Analysts on average put Microsoft's profit at 49 cents a share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, which includes a U.S. holiday shopping season that has been called the worst in at least four decades. The Redmond, Washington-based company had forecast a per-share profit of 51 cents to 53 cents for the quarter.

Wall Street is looking for quarterly revenue of $17.1 billion, according to Reuters Estimates, also short of Microsoft's own target of $17.3 billion to $17.8 billion.

Egbert says she expects Microsoft to report sales of its Windows software for PCs and laptops to drop 3 percent from a year earlier, making it the toughest quarter in eight years. She blames the shortfall on weak consumer sales, noting that businesses have yet to cut back as much as retail shoppers.

Wall Street's expectations for Microsoft's performance for its fiscal year ending in June 2009 have declined since it last reported results three months ago.

Analyst forecasts for full-year net income have dropped 10 percent to $17.77 billion, while revenue projections are down 4.4 percent at $63.68 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.


POSSIBLE JOB CUTS

With an eye on reducing costs, Microsoft is widely expected to announce that it will cut jobs, following similar moves by other tech firms, including AT&T Inc, Dell Inc, Motorola Inc and Advance Micro Devices Inc.

"Checks indicate that Microsoft is likely to engage in headcount reductions to the tune of 6,000 to 8,000 employees or 6 percent to 8 percent of its 95,000 workforce," said McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Sid Parakh. "Our checks also revealed some speculation over the potential for a second round of cuts in some groups sometime later in the year."

Other analysts suggest the cost reductions may occur in the next few weeks and could also include more targeted cutbacks and attrition, rather than the big number of layoffs that some have speculated.

Microsoft has declined to comment on any likelihood of job cuts. Its shares have dropped 41 percent over the past year, while shares in another technology bellwether, IBM, have lost 16 percent. The S&P 500 Index .SPX> has dropped 38 percent during the same period.
Analysts are also expected to pepper Chief Executive Steve Ballmer with questions about the status of the company's relationship with Yahoo, now that the Internet company has named Diane Bartz as its new CEO.

Bartz told employees earlier this week that she had a phone conversation with Ballmer, who has repeatedly said he remains interested in pursuing a search partnership with Yahoo but does not intend to renew an offer for the whole company.

Microsoft made a bid for Yahoo last year, but walked away after they disagreed on price. Investors have been skeptical about whether the software company can win online advertising revenue away from Google and Yahoo, which are both stronger than Microsoft in the Internet search market.


Source : Guardian
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Yahoo layoffs to spread to France

France isn't immune to the layoffs that Yahoo began last year.

PaidContent.org reported Tuesday that 52 of the country's 251 employees will lose their jobs, citing Agence France-Presse.

Yahoo spokesman Brad Williams said employees in France will be affected by the Yahoo layoff that began in December, cutting 10 percent of staff worldwide, or 1,520 people. Because of different regulations, the French cuts are taking place later than those in the United States, and employees haven't yet been notified.

Williams declined to comment on the number who will be losing jobs or the timing of the cuts. However, a Yahoo source familiar with the situation said the Agence France-Presse figure is in the right ballpark.

Source : Cnet
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

AMD announces 1,100 job cuts

AMD announced on Friday that it is to reduce its headcount by 1,100 and cut employee salaries in a bid to tackle the current economic crisis.

The chip firm had already warned investors that its profits are likely to be lower than expected this year, and has made two previous rounds of job cuts. AMD now intends to cut salaries as well.

Those expecting lighter pay packets in the coming months include chief executive Dirk Meyer and chairman Hector Ruiz, who will see their wages cut by 20 per cent. Other senior staff members will see their salaries reduced by 15 per cent, while lower-rung staff can expect cuts of between 10 and 15 per cent.

AMD said that the reductions are temporary, but did not specify how long they were expected to last.

Source : VNUNET
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]

Sun Microsystems to lay off 1300 Indians

International software and hardware companies operating in India will lay off more than 1,500,000 jobs in 2009. Sun Microsystems employs close to 1400 people in India. They are forced to reduce staff size by 40% due to lack of revenue from US and India.

"Our focus is now more on public sector units as there is hardly any cost cutting in the government sector. Earlier, PSUs contributed some 20-25% of our revenues and the rest came from the private sector. But, in 2009, we expect some 40-45% of our revenues to come from PSUs," said Mr Valluri.

According to sources, PSUs are actually slashing costs through reduction in expenditure in software and hardware.

India faces more than 1.5 million job losses in the first half of 2009.

Source : IndiaDaily
[tags : recession bankrupt collapse retrenchment financial news collapse stagnation economic slowdown financial collapse world recession global recession layoff job cut]