Lexmark to Cut 1,700 Jobs

What do you think of when you think Lexmark? The odds are good that most of you answered printers. For those of you did, lets begin with the good news. The company actually makes a lot more than a line of ink jet machines. Here is a look at how they choose to describe themselves, “Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) provides businesses of all sizes with a broad range of printing and imaging products, software, solutions and services that help customers to print less and save more. Perceptive Software, a Lexmark company, is a leading provider of process and content management software that helps organizations fuel greater operational efficiency…Lexmark reported $4 billion in revenue in 2011, with approximately 58 percent of that revenue coming from international sales. Our products are sold in more than 170 countries in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Pacific Rim and the Caribbean.”

Now, the bad news. The company will no longer be making those printers. As a part of a major reorganization the company has chosen to drop that aspect of its business, along with a significant number of its workers. The company outlined its plans in a release, “ Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) today announced restructuring actions, including the exiting of the development and manufacturing of the company’s remaining inkjet hardware, which are expected to result in annualized savings of $95 million once fully implemented. Lexmark will continue to provide service, support and aftermarket supplies for its inkjet installed base. …The actions include closing the Cebu, Philippines, inkjet supplies manufacturing facility by the end of 2015. The actions also include eliminating inkjet development worldwide, including costs related to facilities, tooling, equipment, contract termination, and scrapping in process inventory, which are expected to be principally complete by the end of 2013. These restructuring actions are expected to result in the elimination of approximately 1,700 positions worldwide, including 1,100 manufacturing positions.”

If a significant number of these job cuts come to the workers employed by the company in the US then a mass layoff action For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

Sadly it seems like there are many different technology companies that are cutting back on workers in a big way in order to put its profits to right. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage of cuts to Sharp here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed, “Sharp, a maker of many different types of televisions, as well as a few other device, is looking to get rid of a significant amount of its staff. The company is set to get rid of about 15 percent of its workers in order to save on costs. In absolute terms this means that about 8,000 workers are being put out of their jobs. For now the full extent of the cuts, in terms of locations, is not known but about 3,000 workers will come from manufacturing facilities in both Mexico and China. These two facilities, which are rumored to be up for sale, are representing less than half of the job losses on the whole. The company is not saying where the rest of the cuts are coming from, only that the layoffs are to come.”