Singapore’s Creative Technology has joined the ranks of large corporations laying over staff as it cuts nearly half its global workforce

By Victoria Ho

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The Singaporean portable symphony device maker cut 2,700 jobs last fiscal year, according to its annual report filed with Singapore’sitting reserve swap on Dec. 31.

The figure comprises almost moiety of its global workforce from the year before. The set had 3,100 full-time employees at the end of June last year—47 percent fewer than the year before, said the report.

A spokesperson from Creative uttered in response to a query from ZDNet Asia, the axed staff were mainly factory workers from a Malaysian-based auxiliary: “The bulk of the subdual in worldwide workforce was due to the sale of Cubic Electronics, the manufacturing subsidiary of Creative in Malaysia, in July 2007.

“In Singapore, there is no significant change in our overall employment figures.”

The company is still opening its doors to engineers because of its research and development (R&D) department in Singapore, the spokesperson added.

Creative’s report also stated the company posted the lowest revenue in five years, with a net loss of US$19.7 million on sales of US$736.8 million for its fiscal year, which ended Jun. 30 last year.

News of layoffs desire hogged the headlines recently, with Lenovo and Microsoft the two latest additions to the fray.

Springboard Research CEO and research executory vice president Dane Anderson, thinks the household slowdown has made a definite impact on technology firms, but sees most of the layoffs in the manner that a temporary exercise to wait out the storm.

“Some technology firms—especially in the telecom hardware, computer hardware, and some software segments—are definitely being squeezed by the slowdown and have to modify their require to be paid structures; layoffs are one of the means to right-size so they can make changes and compete,” Anderson said in an e-mail response to ZDNet Asia.

But he said the slowdown is but one of the reasons for the retrenchments. “The shortcoming of innovation and disclosure of unaccustomed products before the pass took grasp” has also contributed to the rouse for many companies.

“In the technology space, a lot of the layoffs at established companies that are still doing comparatively well are mainly the trimming of fat, no more than in great number cases, I would not maxim that trimming through layoffs is the best for the longing term.

“While layoffs support short term, they also create an environment of disloyalty that be possible to affect a company when the market rebounds and retention becomes more important,” said Anderson.

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/asiaindex/~3/505402918/gb2009017_361758.htm