Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday downplayed concern about possible retrenchments, after an internal letter from Acer Taiwan operations president Towny Huang (黃鐘鋒) said the company was looking to let go of 15 employees in Taiwan.
The company expects higher productivity to lead to increased competitiveness, Huang said in the letter, which was written in English and sent to top executives in Taiwan.
Reducing head count is one of many options to optimize operations, Acer corporate headquarters yesterday said in an e-mailed statement, adding that it does not have any plans to lay off employees.
“Acer has nearly 3,000 employees based in Taiwan [including subsidiaries]. Organizational reconstruction is part of the firm’s normal efforts to optimize operations,” the statement said.
However, when asked by the Taipei Times to confirm the authenticity of the letter, Huang did not deny its existence, but said that the aim of the letter was to “ask the executives to review the competitiveness of their departments.”
“It is really a tough job for you to do laying-off. But for helping most of Acer people who have committed his career to Acer and are good enough for his current job and future challenge, we need to do the laying-off of at least 15 persons,” Huang said in the letter, which asked recipients to submit a list of underperforming employees by Friday and said that a workshop would be held on Oct. 13 to discuss the lists.
“We will evaluate it [the list] first and then carry out the plan in a bid to increase the Taiwan region’s efficiency and productivity,” Huang said by telephone.
Although Acer’s market share in Taiwan has grown over the past year, it has not met its goals, Huang said, adding that this year’s sales were flattish from the same period last year.
He declined to disclose the market share and sales figures.
The average efficiency of an Acer Taiwan employee is lower than that of the firm’s major competitors in its home market, he said.
“We have a lot of room to improve… I hope this letter helps to get employees thinking about how to increase their personal added value and productivity to the company,” he said.
Acer has about 180 employees in Taiwan, which would mean 15 jobs would be an 8.33 percent reduction in its total head count.
Acer has remained profitable over the past six quarters. Its net income totaled NT$175.76 million (US$5.28 million), or NT$0.06 per share, in the first half of this year.
Acer shares have fallen 37.7 percent since the beginning of the year.
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