NEC Corp, the third-biggest chipmaker, will cut 4,000 jobs worldwide and withdraw from memory-chip production within three years to reduce costs and boost profit.
The job losses will include about 2,200 contracted employees.
NEC will cut more than 600 of 1,600 workers at a chip plant in Scotland before March 2002.
Slumping demand for computers and consumer electronics has caught up with Japanese exporters like NEC, which had benefited from a weak yen to keep growing during a recession at home. NEC has struggled as the price of benchmark memory chips tumbled below the cost of production this year.
NEC's group profit fell 72 percent in the quarter ended in June, hurt by lower prices of microchips and PCs.
It is targeting net sales growth of 6 percent a year and an annual 6.4 percent increase in operating income. The company's shares rose 7 percent to ?1,669 on optimism it is taking bolder steps than many of its rivals.
NEC will cut chip spending by NEC Electron Devices by ?50 billion (US$401 million) this year to ?120 billion and freeze its planned ?20 billion investment to produce 8-inch wafers at its Shanghai chip plant.
The company will reduce or consolidate production at several semiconductor manufacturing plants, including almost halving monthly output at its UK chip plant.
NEC said in May it will stop making computer memory chips overseas, leaving a plant in Hiroshima, in western Japan, as the only one that focuses on faster chips.
Today NEC said it will continue to supply Elpida Memory Inc with chips on a contract-manufacturing basis at its Hiroshima plant, eventually transferring DRAM chip operations to Elpida and withdrawing from the business by about 2004, the company said.
The company will combine three chip assembling companies in Japan into NEC Semiconductors Kyushu Ltd in October and merge two other assembly plants into one location in the second half of this fiscal year.
Tokyo-based NEC is moving from low-margin DRAM production to concentrate on optical and microwave semiconductors, used in broadband Internet and mobile devices. It will establish a subsidiary in October, NEC Compound Device Ltd, that it plans to list on a stock exchange at an unspecified date.
Separately, the company is working with Thomson Multimedia on a venture to produce color plasma displays. The company is also looking for other possible partners to form alliances with in this area.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)