Nokia said Friday that a streamlining effort could result in the elimination of as many as 330 positions from its research and development staff, or about 2 percent of its global R&D workforce.
Microelectronics research at Nokia.
(Credit: NOkia)The changes will likely hit up to 230 workers in the company's Oulu site in Finland and roughly 100 at its Copenhagen site. Nokia said it plans to offer voluntary severance packages to the affected workers and to find alternative jobs for as many people as possible.
The company currently employs more than 17,000 workers in its R&D business. It has 2,000 employees at the Oulu facility and 1,000 in Copenhagen.
Though Nokia still holds the top spot in the smartphone arena, its dominance has been eroded by competition from the likes of Apple and Research In Motion. A recent In-Stat report found that Nokia's share of the smartphone market had dropped to 35 percent in this year's second quarter compared with 50 percent in the prior year's quarter.
Another report from Strategy Analytics revealed that Apple had surpassed Nokia in cell phone profits during the third quarter, the first time that Nokia had fallen to second place.
Nokia's third-quarter results showed a net loss of $832 million, while sales dropped around 20 percent. Nokia Siemens, the network equipment maker run by Nokia and Siemens, has also been a drag on its owners, recently announcing its own layoffs and cost cuts as a result of its weak performance.
Adobe Systems expects to cut 680 full-time employees, or about 9 percent of its global workforce, as the company tries to align costs in the face of lagging sales.
The layoff, which was disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, marks the second wave of job cuts in the past year. In December, the company said it would slash 600 jobs amid less-than-anticipated demand for its recently launched Creative Suite 4 series of products.
The cuts will affect only those workers who were Adobe employees before the $1.8 billion acquisition of Web analytics firm Omniture in September. They are separate from an earlier-announced 9 percent workforce reduction within the Omniture unit, which had about 1,200 employees at the time of the acquisition.
Adobe, which is best known for its Photoshop and Illustrator software titles, said it expects to record about $65 million to $71 million in pretax restructuring charges.
"Adobe is restructuring its business to align costs with its fiscal 2010 operating plan and budget, the company's three-year strategic priorities, and the realities of the business environment, as well as to ensure its ability to continue investing in long-term growth opportunities," Adobe said in a statement.
In September, Adobe reported that its fiscal third-quarter profit fell 29 percent amid declining sales.
Linux jobs in the United States are booming, up 6 percent since January, according to data from Dice.com. This will come as small consolation to Novell employees, however, which weathered another round of layoffs at the Waltham, Mass.-based company.
According to several sources within the company, and confirmed by Novell's public-relations director, Ian Bruce, Novell last week laid off 100 to 130 people of its roughly 3,900 global employees.
While my sources indicated that the Workgroup division was particularly hard-hit, Bruce told me that the cuts came "across the company, both geographically and productwise."
Novell appears to be doing its best in caring for these employees, offering several months of severance pay, apparently based on the number of years with the company, among other factors.
For those remaining employed there, Novell announced this week that it would be suspending 401(k) matching contributions, which followed on the heels of its formal filing on Monday, to that effect, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Novell has spent the past few years attempting to reinvent itself as a Linux company, and it has managed to string together several quarters with strong earnings in its Linux business on the back of its controversial partnership with Microsoft. The company has struggled to compete effectively with Linux-leader Red Hat.
On November 2, a Novell PR representative contacted me to arrange a conversation with CEO Ron Hovsepian about Novell's "new focus in its strategic direction."
Whether this means more or less open source is not yet clear. It is clear, however, that Novell needs to focus more on top-line revenue growth, and not merely ways to cut costs. Until Novell learns to grow business, and not simply reduce expenses, its employees are going to remain all-too-familiar with layoffs.
Damaged by lower sales, huge operating losses, and a falling market share, Nokia Siemens Networks is pinning its hopes on a major reorganization.
The network equipment maker, jointly owned by Nokia and Siemens, announced Tuesday that it will lay off 5,700 employees and cut its five business units to three as part of a plan to slash expenses by 500 million euros ($740 million) by the end of 2011.
The layoffs will represent around 7 percent to 9 percent of the company's 64,000 global employees and is likely to be felt across all countries in which Nokia Siemens has a presence. The company did not state which jobs would be affected but did say that any disruption to sales positions that deal directly with customers should be limited.
The three new revamped business units are expected to launch on January 1 and will include Business Solutions, Network Systems, and Global Services.
"As our customers make purchasing decisions, they want a partner who engages in issues well beyond a traditional discussion of technology," said Rajeev Suri, chief executive officer of Nokia Siemens Networks, in a statement. "Business models, innovation, growth and transformation are now very much front and center when it comes to the selection of a technology partner - and our planned new structure will position us well in this changing market."
The company said it's also looking at potential new acquisitions and partnerships that could enhance its product line or expand its customer base. In June, Nokia Siemens bought Nortel's wireless technology for $650 million.
"We recognize that we are operating in a market where customer needs are evolving fast," said Mika Vehvilainen, chief operating officer of Nokia Siemens Networks, in a statement. "We see acquisitions and expanded partnering as important tools to help meet these needs in the fastest, most efficient way possible."
Formed in early 2007, Nokia Siemens has seemed cursed from the start. Its launch was initially delayed a few months due to a bribery scandal involving several former Siemens executives.
The new company had hardly gotten off the ground when it announced it wouldn't meet financial expectations. And it's struggled since then, hurt by the economic downturn and increasing competition.
Third-quarter sales fell 21 percent to 2.8 billion euros, while its operating loss widened to 1.1 billion euros. Parent Nokia was recently forced to spend 908 million euros to write down the value of the deteriorating business.
Sun Microsystems plans to cut as many as 3,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its global workforce, during the next year as it prepares for Oracle's takeover of the company.
The cuts, revealed on Tuesday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, represent the second major round of layoffs in a year for the server maker. Sun announced restructuring plans last November to cut up to 6,000 jobs this year, or 18 percent of its global workforce.
Those cuts were disclosed before Oracle announced its $7.4 billion bid for Sun in April, following Sun's rejection of overtures from IBM. IBM was still interested in Sun and somewhat blindsided by Oracle's move, a source told CNET News at the time.
The U.S. Justice Department approved the takeover in August, but the merger still requires approval by the European Commission, which is concerned that the deal could threaten competition in the database market in the European Economic Area (EEA), an association composed of 30 European countries. The Commission has until January 19 to make a final decision on the merger.
Meanwhile, the delay is causing financial turmoil for Sun's business. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said at an industry gathering in Silicon Valley last month, "Sun is losing $100 million a month; we'd like to get this thing done."
The acquisition is part of a change in thinking for Oracle, which, at one time, eschewed mergers but has gone on a buying spree in recent years, gobbling up PeopleSoft and many other software companies. Ellison at one time specifically rejected the notion of buying Sun.
Sun said in the filing that it expects to take $75 million to $125 million in restructuring charges over the next several quarters.
An Oracle representative did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dell is closing its desktop PC manufacturing plant in Winston-Salem, N.C.
The cost-cutting move will ax 905 jobs, with 600 workers set to be laid off in November and the rest in January, Dell said Wednesday.
"This is a difficult decision, especially for our North Carolina colleagues, but a necessary one for Dell customers and our company," Frank Miller, vice president of Dell's Public Business Unit Supply Chain, said in a statement.
Dell had announced some layoffs at the North Carolina plant in March but gave no indication that the plant itself might be in danger of shutting down.
This plant closure is just the latest in a series of efforts by Dell to shrink expenses worldwide by billions of dollars.
In 2007, the company said it would lay off 8,800 employees, or 10 percent of its global workforce. However, the company modified that number last year, cautioning workers to expect even deeper cuts.
Over the past few years, employees in Canada, Ireland, and, of course, the U.S. have gotten pink slips.
The appetite of consumers toward laptops over desktops was a factor behind the decision to close the North Carolina plant, which opened four years ago. Last year, Dell shut down its desktop manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas.
Another round of employees at Cisco Systems reportedly got pink slips Thursday, as the company laid off several hundred employees as part of its plan to cut costs and realign its business.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that between 600 and 700 Cisco employees were laid off at the company's headquarters in San Jose, Calif. The company also cut jobs at branch offices in other parts of the U.S. The Wall Street Journal cited sources close to the company.
A spokesman for the company told the Wall Street Journal that Cisco was "doing everything possible to minimize the impact on employees affected by the limited restructuring."
Like all companies, Cisco, which makes networking equipment that runs the Internet and provides communications for large companies, has seen sales slump as a result of the global recession. The company said earlier this year that it would likely cut between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs as it realigned its business to focus on newer more profitable business segments. The cuts were expected to be completed at the end of the company's fiscal year, which ends this month.
In February, Cisco said it cut about 250 jobs at its San Jose headquarters. Cisco had 66,558 employees at the end of April. Despite the cuts, Cisco's CEO John Chambers has said publicly that he believes the worst of the recession is over. But he noted that it could take some time before spending returns to high levels. Wall Street will be watching the company's next earnings call very carefully to see signs that the bottom has been reached. Cisco will report fiscal fourth quarter and end of year earnings on August 5 after the market closes.
With the overall economy slumping, the tech industry is taking its fair share of hits. We'll keep updating the chart below as news of company changes comes in. See our complete coverage of how the tech sector is faring here: Tracking the tech downturn.
Know of a layoff not listed here? Let us know on this form or e-mail us.
... Read moreSeagate announced Thursday that it has initiated a restructuring plan that includes laying off approximately 1,100 employees, or 2.5 percent of the company's global workforce.
(Credit:
Seagate)
According to the hard-drive maker, this reduction is required to support a targeted product development, marketing, and administrative costs of less than $300 million per quarter. In addition, it will also help position the company to be cash flow and earnings positive within its fiscal year 2010.
Seagate expects the layoffs to be completed by the end of July and result in total pretax restructuring charges of approximately $72 million. These charges, primarily incurred in the June 2009 quarter, consist mainly of cash-based employee termination costs, which are expected to be substantially paid in the September 2009 quarter.
All in all, the annual savings generated from this restructuring action is expected to be approximately $125 million.
This is the company's second round of layoffs. The first one was announced in January with about 800 people affected. Since then the company has been continuing to reduce its global headcount through attrition and restructuring, resulting in a reduction in the company's labor costs in excess of 25 percent.
Other than letting people go, Seagate has previously announced the realignment of its organizational structure to increase efficiency, including the closures of two recording media facilities and its Pittsburgh research facility, company-wide salary reductions, and other cost reduction initiatives.
Seagate's main competitor, Western Digital also laid off 2,500 employees back in December 2008, but the company reported positive earning with the net income of $50 million for for its fiscal third quarter that ended on March 27.
See the layoff scorecard for a list of tech companies that have reduced their workforce in recent months.
Software services in the U.S. helped temper the overall sequential decline in technology jobs during the fourth quarter, allowing the industry to minimize jobs losses compared to the private sector, according to a TechAmerica report released late Monday.
Tech jobs, overall, dipped 0.6 percent, or by 38,000 positions, sequentially in the fourth quarter, while U.S. private sector jobs declined 1.3 percent during the same period, according to TechAmerica, a technology advocacy trade group.
"The tech sector weathered the storm longer and stronger than other parts of the economy," Phil Bond, TechAmerica president, said during a conference call to report the results.
Software services aided that performance by growing a modest 0.7 percent, or by 12,600 jobs, during the fourth quarter, compared with the previous quarter.
"Software services was the bright spot," said Josh James, TechAmerica's director of research and industry analysis, who also spoke during the conference call.
Other sectors, such as high-tech manufacturing and communications services continued to struggle, posting negative sequential job growth in the fourth quarter, according to the report.
(Credit:
TechAmerica)
And during 2008, the high tech industry posted a 1.3 percent net gain of 77,000 jobs, bringing total employment for the industry to 5.9 million workers. Despite the net gain in tech jobs last year, it was smaller than the previous year when 79,600 jobs were added to the technology landscape.
During the year, software services, in addition to engineering and tech services, posted job growth for the fifth straight year. But high-tech manufacturing and communications services posted a decline in job growth last year.
The communications sector posted a net decline in job growth, as the industry continued to consolidate, James said.
Communications sector lost 12,700 net jobs last year over the prior year, while high-tech manufacturing dropped 23,100 net jobs, compared with the previous year, according to the report.
