As questions are fired on the fate of STMicroelectronics in Malta, US based Texas Instruments (TI), one of ST’s main competitors in the semi-conductor industry, has yesterday announced plans to cut down its workforce by 12 per cent.
By the end of September, TI would have reduced its workforce by a walloping 3,400.
1,800 are expected to be laid off, while an additional 1,600 shall be offered voluntary retirements. This move, along with a previously announced decision to eliminate an additional 650 jobs last October, will be saving TI some US$700 million.
The announcement came soon after TI declared sharp losses in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Founded in 1930, Texas Instruments is the top supplier of chips for cellular handsets, as well as the number one producer of digital signal processors (DSPs) and analogue semiconductors. Other focus areas include chips for broadband modems, PC peripherals, digital consumer devices, telecommunication infrastructure, and radio frequency identification (RFID).
TI’s announcement has brought further light on the technology downturn that has been sending warning signals to the global industry as of early last year.
In March 2008, software developers Entellium decided to reduce their staff by 95 per cent. This was soon followed by Gawker Media’s decision to sack 14 per cent of its editorial team.
June last year saw eBay’s decision to lay off 1,000 employees, followed by Micron’s decision to slash its flash output by 15 per cent.
In October, Qimonda announced a global restructuring programme, laying off 3,000 in the process. On the morrow, RedFin and Jive software decided to sack 20 per cent and 33 per cent of their staff, respectively.
That same month, Sony Ericsson said it would trim its workforce by 2,000, HP by 24,600 over three years, Freescale by 2,400 and Motorola by 3,000.
November saw Nortel’s earnings tanking, together with 1,300 of its employees; AMD’s 500 and Nokia’s 600.
Sun Microsystems planned reduction of 6,000 staff as part of its restructuring process, and because of Apple and RIM taking their toll – Palm shrank its workforce by 1,050.
In December, AT&T laid off 12,000; followed by Sony’s 6,000; Yahoo’s 1,520 and Alcatel-Lucent’s 1,000 managers and 5,000 contractors.
Just before Christmas, Laird halved its workforce to 5,000; Western Digital cut off 2,500 jobs; Unisys 1,300 and Logitech laid plans to make 15 per cent of its staff redundant.
The new year saw EMC making 2,400 redundant, Lenovo 2,500; Dell 1,900 and Seagate 800. The announcements were soon followed by Motorola’s plan for another round of lay-offs – this time of 4,000.
Recently AMD trimmed 1,100 jobs, Ericsson 5,000, Microsoft an additional 5,000 and IBM more than 2,800. This week, Philips cut 6,000 jobs and Sprint Nextel 8,000.
