Pink slip Dell hell
The world's No. 2 computer maker, Dell, continues to shed jobs this week as the firm announced it would be shutting up shop at its desktop PC manufacturing plant in Winston-Salem in North Carolina, part of an ongoing cost-cut the firm hopes will save it $4 billion by the end of 2011.
905 souls will be left jobless, in the run up to Christmas, with 600 workers set to be laid off in November and the remainder in January, according to Dell. The firm had previously said it would be making job cuts at the North Carolina plant, but hadn't said it would be closing down the facility completely.
"This is a difficult decision, especially for our North Carolina colleagues, but a necessary one for Dell customers and our company," said Frank Miller, VPof Dell's public business unit supply chain, in a statement.
Back in 2007, Dell said it would have to reduce approximately 10 per cent of its global workforce, or some 8,800 workers, to save money. Much of this has been achieved through painful job cuts.
In 2008, Dell closed down its desktop manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas and workers in Canada and Ireland have also suffered massive redundancies. As of Jan. 30 2009, Dell counted around 76,500 regular employees, down from 82,700 a year earlier. But now the firm has warned it may lay off even more personnel than originally planned, despite apparently being able to find $3.9 billion to invest in Perot Systems recently.
Dell has blamed the dwindling PC market - which makes up almost 60 per cent of its revenues - and the credit crunch for its 22 percent revenue decline in the summer quarter, along with a 23 per cent slump in net income. Dell's enterprise business has also suffered as firms worldwide have had to cut back on IT spending.
According to market research outfit IDC, Dell's shipments fell 17 per cent in Q209, as the firm faces increasing pressure from the likes of Acer, HP and Lenovo.
