Western Digital to Cut Jobs

Western Digital is a name you may know, if you you’re your storage space. If however keeping your files in just the right place isn’t what get you all hot and bothered you may need a chance to learn about what the company does  before we talk about the job cuts that they are making, “Western Digital, a storage industry pioneer and long-time leader, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users’ data accessible and secure from loss. Its storage technologies serve a wide range of host applications including client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own storage systems. Its home entertainment products enable rich engagement with stored digital content. Western Digital was founded in 1970. The company’s products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital®, WD® and HGST™ brand names.”

The company is getting ready to shed about 77 workers from its facility located in Fremont. The kind of jobs to be cut have not been outlined by the company in any real detail but since these are not the headquarters of the company it is safe to say that at least some manufacturing jobs will be impacted by the job cuts to be made.

A loss this big in a single location is enough to trigger a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. 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.” The only good news in a situation like this is that the workers must be given several weeks of notice before they are cut from the payrolls.

The company put out some information about its current fiscal state that leads to questions about why they are turning to job cuts, “Western Digital® Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today reported revenue of $12.5 billion and net income of $1.6 billion, or $6.58 per share for fiscal year 2012, compared to fiscal 2011 revenue of $9.5 billion and net income of $726 million, or $3.09 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, fiscal 2012 net income was $2.1 billion or $8.61 per share, compared to fiscal 2011 net income of $770 million or $3.28 per share.¹ Both the GAAP and non-GAAP fiscal 2012 results include results from the company’s newly acquired HGST subsidiary from the acquisition date of March 8 through the end of fiscal 2012. For its fourth fiscal quarter ended June 29, 2012, the company reported revenue of $4.8 billion, hard-drive shipments of 71.0 million and net income of $745 million, or $2.87 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $872 million, or $3.35 per share.² In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $2.4 billion, net income of $158 million, or $0.67 per share, and shipped 53.8 million hard drives. Non-GAAP net income in the year-ago quarter was $193 million, or $0.81 per share.”

Update: A massive hiring going on Western Digital Corporation.Please click here to know about latest updates.