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Sony restructuring in Japan: camera lens plant to close with loss of 2,000 jobs
Kaz Hirai's "One Sony" rescue plan was designed to unite the many disparate arms of the conglomerate, shed 10,000 jobs and make cost savings wherever it could. Facilities in Sweden and the UK have already been closed, so now the company is shifting focus to its operations in Japan. Sony will close its Minokamo site, which currently produces camera lenses for DSLRs and smartphones, with production being moved to factories in Kohida and Kisarazu, 840 staff will lose their jobs. The company is also instituting an early retirement program across its various Japanese businesses in order to push the domestic total to 2,000 -- which it must do before a self-imposed deadline of March 2013.
AMD could slash up to 30 percent of its workforce according to reports
AllThingsD and CNET are reporting that 30 percent of AMD's workforce could be laid off, though one of several unnamed sources notes the cuts could be as low as 10 percent. If these reports hold true, this would be the second round of layoffs for AMD within a year's time. The reductions will reportedly affect the firm's engineering and sales employees, and may be serious enough to cause a paring back of product lines. The silicon giant could potentially reveal its plans as early as next week, which would coincide with the announcement of its third quarter financial results. With the company expecting a ten percent revenue drop in Q3, it looks like the latest figures will continue the trend of less than ideal results.
Sharp reports 2,000 job cuts in Japan, more changes expected
There was little doubt jobs would be on the line after Sharp's significant Q1 losses, but now it's official. Following a board meeting today, the company has joined the likes of RIM, Sony and HP, announcing the "voluntary retirement" of around 2,000 staff in Japan before the year's out. The layoffs are part of a wider, textbook reorganization plan, and are expected to cost a sizeable 27 billion yen (approximately $344 million). Neither figure is set in stone, however, so when everything is finalized we could see more jobs impacted and those costs soar. Whether this puts off potential investment from Hon Hai Precision Industry is unknown, but while Sharp's TVs get ever bigger, its wallet continues to get thinner.
Sony Mobile moving HQ to Tokyo, cutting 1,000 jobs in Sweden
Sony's slow and painful transformation continues with a restructuring of its newly-minted mobile division. In October, it's moving its headquarters from Lund, Sweden (presumably a holdover from its Ericsson days) to Tokyo -- for deeper integration -- and repurposing the duties of its facilities in Tokyo, Lund and Beijing. As part of the changes, Sony Mobile will slash 15 percent of its workforce, with 1,000 employees being let go by the end of March 2014, in a trend we've seen across the industry. Most of those affected are in Sweden, with 650 on-site staffers and up to 450 consultants being shown the door.
Nokia's Q2 2012 financials: 4 million Lumias sold, $1.01 billion dollar loss
The past three months haven't been the best for Finland's former world number one. It hasn't been helped by the three biggest credit agencies lowering the company's bond rating to "junk," and the Lumia 900's violently slashed price. Unfortunately the latest results reveal continuing gloom: the manufacturer made an operating loss of $1.01 billion dollars for the quarter. The company managed to make €7.5 billion in sales ($9.2 billion, down .5 billion since the last quarter), shifting four million Lumia handsets in the process. In fact, the only cause for optimism is that sales of the Lumia range have roughly doubled each quarter. The number of handsets pushed out the door increased (thanks to the Asha range of budget phones) with the company selling 73 million phones. That said, the company has clearly failed to crack America, selling a paltry 600,000 handsets in the States. The cash pile has also continued to dwindle, with the piggybank currently standing at €4.1 billion ($5.1 billion), down from $6.3 billion in Q1, despite getting a further $250 million in kickbacks from Microsoft. Unsurprisingly, the prediction for the third quarter of the year was similarly dour, summed up rather euphemistically as "difficult."
RIM announces Q1 earnings: $518 million net loss, 5,000 job cuts, BB10 not due until Q1 2013
The last quarter has been about as rough as they come for RIM, and it's now detailed just how things stacked up in terms of hard numbers. For the first quarter of its 2013 fiscal year, the company brought in $2.8 billion in revenue, down a full 33 percent from the prior quarter, while it reported a net loss of $518 million -- much worse than analysts were expecting. What's more, it's also announced that it's cutting an additional 5,000 jobs as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts, and that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones now won't launch until sometime in the first quarter of the 2013 calendar year (that includes a QWERTY model launched in "close proximity" to the touchscreen-only device). As for why, RIM only went as far as to say that the integration of some key BlackBerry 10 features and the "associated large volume of code" has "proven to be more time consuming than anticipated." For his part, though, CEO Thorsten Heins says he remains "confident that the first BlackBerry 10 smartphones will provide a ground-breaking next generation smartphone user experience," and that he's "encouraged by the traction that the BlackBerry 10 platform is gaining with application developers and content partners." He further notes that the response to BB10 from key carrier partners has "been very positive." In terms of its existing devices, RIM reports that BlackBerry smartphone shipments (not sales) for the quarter totaled 7.8 million, while there were about 260,000 PlayBooks shipped -- on the company's earnings call, Heins noted that the total BlackBerry subscriber base now stands at 78 million. Not surprisingly, the company is warning of more bad news to come. It says it expects the "next several quarters to continue to be very challenging," with everything from the "increasing competitive environment," lower handset volumes, impact from the BlackBerry 10 delay, and the company's plans to "continue to aggressively drive sales of BlackBerry 7 handheld devices" expected to cut into its bottom line. In another bit of news, the company also announced that it has appointed Steve Zipperstein, Verizon's former General Counsel, as its new Chief Legal Officer. You can find the full earnings report at the source link below.
RIM may cut 2,000-plus jobs within two weeks
RIM's current chief Thorsten Heins has had to make some tough decisions in the first few months of his tenure -- and he could be making some particularly difficult choices about trimming the rank and file within the next two weeks. Assuming we take the claims of several contacts for Canada's The Globe and Mail at face value, "at least" 2,000 jobs are being cut on or before June 1st. The numbers could climb higher at that: Reuters is bracing for as many as 6,000 layoffs, and has described an unhappy routine of "Goodbye Thursdays" where more recent hires are let go. RIM has turned down comment on what it calls "rumors and speculation," and we'd hope for the sake of those possibly affected that it's not true. Having said this, it's hard not to imagine Heins wanting to streamline the BlackBerry maker as much as possible to adapt to shrinking market share and keep the company afloat until BlackBerry 10 potentially spurs a revival.
HP cuts 27,000 jobs, profit tumbles 31 percent in Q2
Looks like rumors of major cost-cutting measures at HP are true: the company along with its fiscal Q2 results has just outlined plans to slash 27,000 jobs by the end of its fiscal 2014. The group of affected staffers, or about eight percent of the workforce, is being offered an "early retirement" if it doesn't want to wait to be let go involuntarily. The move is intended to streamline HP's operations and save between $3 billion to $3.5 billion a year by the time the cuts are done. As for the results themselves, they explain all too clearly why the cuts are inbound: HP 's profit dropped a massive 31 percent to $1.6 billion, and its revenue dropped three points to $30.7 billion. CEO Meg Whitman touted the results as exceeding an earlier glum outlook, but with the enterprise, printer and services groups all dragging the company down, it's clear that HP is in the same boat as a struggling Dell.
HP will reportedly announce restructuring plan next week, up to 30,000 job cuts
It looks like HP could be in store for another wave of big changes. According to a pair of reports out today (backing up a report from Business Insider yesterday), HP CEO Meg Whitman will announce a new restructuring plan on the company's earnings call next Wednesday -- a plan that will entail some significant job cuts. Bloomberg pegs those cuts in the neighborhood of 25,000, while All Things D says they could include as many as 30,000 jobs, noting also that the number is still a "moving target." To put that in perspective, the company currently employs some 320,000 people worldwide. Of those cuts, 10 to 15,000 are said to come from HP's enterprise services group, and the company is also said to be offering early retirement packages to some 5,000 employees. That restructuring plan will apparently include more than just job cuts, though, with Whitman said to be pushing a "cut and reinvest" approach that will apply across the company, according to ATD.
ST-Ericsson to pass off application processor business to STM, cut 1,700 jobs
It's not every day that ST-Ericsson crosses our radar twice, but in addition to reportedly signing a deal with HTC for developing low-end handset chips, the company just announced its plans for a turnaround. The message? A heavier focus on SoCs for smartphones and tablets, along with a push for even more partnerships to develop those products. While that all sounds rosy, ST-Ericsson is also ceding its application processor business -- employees, R&D and all -- to STMicroelectronics. All told, between the loss of its application processor business and other reshuffling, the company expects to shed around 1,700 jobs -- and save about $320 million annually. Those bittersweet details and more await you in the press release after the break.
Sony to cut 10,000 jobs and slash bonuses, says Japanese newspaper
There have been some major adjustments at Sony HQ already, but Japanese business sheet Nikkei reckons they're nothing compared to what's on the horizon. It reports that, come an announcement on April 12th, Kaz Hirai will reveal plans to clear out 10,000 jobs by the end of this year -- that's six percent of his workforce. The paper also says that seven execs, including chairman Howard Stringer, could be asked to forgo their bonuses, as the company concedes a $3.2 billion loss for 2011. It's a just a single report and it's entirely possible that none of this will happen, but merely the hint of such austerity could perhaps serve Hirai's interests, even if he ends up being less drastic when Thursday comes around.
HP cuts 275 webOS jobs in transition to open source
In news that should come as little surprise to anyone who's followed the decline of the ill-fated brand, HP is reportedly laying off 275 webOS employees as it transitions the division from producing hardware to open source software. The cuts have apparently been in the works since the company announced the move to open source back in December, and follow on the heels of former Palm chief, Jon Rubinstein's departure last month. A statement from the outfit cited the need for "a more nimble team" to "sustain HP's commitment to the software over the long term," and stated HP's intentions "to redeploy employees affected by these changes to other roles at the company." While reports have surfaced saying the cuts are primarily in engineering, we're told positions in multiple departments are at stake.
Nokia ends European, Mexican production: it's all Asia now (Updated)
Nokia's wielding another axe to its operations, cleaving away a further 4,000 employees from its operations in Finland, Hungary and Mexico. It follows a shedding of roughly 10,000 employees and a troubled withdrawal from Romania as the company pushes more operations towards Asia in an attempt to compete with its competitors. Whilst no more phones will be assembled in Europe, the company isn't closing the facilities outright, they'll be retained for "high value activities" (presumably R&D and other big-ticket projects). Whatever comes of Steven Elop's reign of the world's number one handset maker, it's clear to see that he's got a plan and he's sticking to it.Update: Nokia got in touch to clarify that the factory in Manaus, Brazil is unaffected by these cuts. The three factories mentioned (in Salo, Reynosa and Komarom) will furthermore be used for the software-portion of production, including installing carrier-and-region-specific features in the Americas, Europe and Eurasia. Hardware assembly will now take place at the company's existing facilities in Beijing (China) and Masan (South Korea).
Motorola Mobility to drop 800 jobs
Motorola Mobility has issued a regulatory filing outlining the loss of 800 jobs. The cut will cost the handset manufacturer $31 million -- that number includes $27 million in severance and $4 million to close locations. The reason for the cuts? Bloomberg suggests that it's part of an attempt to lower costs, as the company readies itself to join the Google family -- a decision Motorola's board will vote on in the middle of next month. This news follows last week's earnings report, in which the mobile company reported a $32 million net loss -- not the greatest financial report, sure, but a marked improvement over the prior quarter's $56 million loss.
Panasonic will layoff 17,000 workers globally (updated)
No matter how you slice it, 17,000 is a big number, especially when its seventeen thousand humans looking for jobs. The layoffs represent a four-percent reduction of Panasonic's 380,000 global workforce due to restructuring efforts, according to Nikkei. They are expected to begin this year and will mainly impact employees outside of Japan. Update: Post updated to reflect the actual number of job cuts, not the 40,000 originally quoted by Nikkei or the 35,000 quoted by the AFP. The cuts will come over two years. The news comes as Panasonic reported a ¥40.7 billion ($499 million) loss for quarter, largely on account of a ¥61 billion ($748 million) restructuring cost. Panny says that its bottom line was also affected by a strong Yen, stiff competition in television sales, and the recent earthquake and tsunami.
Microsoft layoffs: the axeman cometh? (update)
Nothing like rumors of corporate layoffs to throw 89,000 Microsoft employees into unproductive turmoil. This time the rumors are being mongered by the Wall Street Journal and TechFlash, both of whom have been told to expect "far smaller" cuts than the 5,000 heads lost during the global financial downturn. And while it's easy to come to the conclusion that this round of layoffs is the result of the Kin debacle, keep in mind that Microsoft is entering a new fiscal year -- the perfect time (from a budgetary perspective) to trim down and refocus on new strategies. Still, if this does affect the Kin team, then let's just hope that the skilled engineers toiling inside the project's pink trenches are spared when the reductions begin as soon as today, according to TechFlash. While J Allard may be gone, one executive alone doesn't create a culture and governance model that builds multi-million dollar silos of duplication and then turns a blind eye to inter-team stonewalling. We say aim high when it comes time to swing that axe Microsoft. Update: TechFlash is now reporting that, yes, Redmond has wielded its handled blade. At this point it's suggested to run only in the hundreds across the globe, and "the low hundreds in the Seattle region," across several groups. Sounds indeed more like a pruning of its over 88,000-strong workforce and less like Kin fallout.
Nokia furloughing up to 20 percent of employees at only Finnish factory
Of its nine factories around the world, Nokia has just one in its home country -- the only one left in all of Western Europe -- in the town of Salo. As you can imagine, its well-being is probably a pretty touchy subject, not just for locals but for Nokia fans around the world -- especially when you consider that the company's highest-end devices are assembled here, making the health of the factory a bellwether for the health of the coolest models in the range. The company has revealed this week that it'll be sending home up to 20 percent of the plant's staff for up to 90 days at any one time, saying that there's simply no need for it to operate at full capacity in the current market; we say you could argue that making the right phones could lead to a need for full capacity, but what do we know? Anyhow, the move closely mirrors one that had already been made for 2009, and you could look on the bright side -- at least they're not closing it down the same way they did Jyväskylä.
Dell to shutter US plant, cut 900 jobs, generally mess up someone's holiday
A report just crossing the wires says that Dell is slated to close one of its US manufacturing plants and cut about 900 jobs -- though that's a pittance compared to the approximately 76,500 workers Dell employs. The company's Winston-Salem, North Carolina desktop production facility will shut down come January 2010, though Dell says around 600 employees will hit the road in November -- just in time for the Holidays. The company says the closure is "part of an ongoing initiative to enhance the long-term value it delivers to customers by simplifying operations and improving efficiency," or as we'd put it, "it looks good on the books." Obviously this isn't the happiest news for the employees being cut, but it's also a familiar tune given the economic events of the past year.
Nokia slashes 1,700 jobs due to "pruned" demand
Finland-based Nokia has just announced that they will cut 1,700 jobs in the corporate development and global functions departments. These cuts will equal about 1 percent of Nokia's entire workforce, and are more than double in number than earlier reports suggested. The company says that the cuts are being driven by "pruned" worldwide demand for its products. Shares of its stock fell 2.6 percent in Helsinki trading after the announcement, while our hopes and dreams fell just 1 percent. Onward and upward, dear Nokia!
Vodafone to slash hundreds of jobs in Britain
Yet another company has succumbed to making tough choices in the face of a rough economy, as Vodafone is reportedly preparing to lay off "hundreds" of workers in Britain. The report stated that the cuts could come as soon as this week, and while there was no definite number given as to how many of its 10,000 employees would be asked to leave, we do know that the operator is aiming to "boost free cash flow by cutting one billion pounds of costs." Predictably, Voda declined to comment on the report, but it'll probably have to talk soon whether it wants to or not.
