Agere to lay off 24% of staff in second round
On April 24, the former subsidiary of Lucent Technologies told investors it would lay off 2,000 workers out of its 18,500 workforce to try to save about US$110 million annually.
Agere now expects to save US$520 million a year by closing plants. This round of downsizing includes 2,500 in the Pennsylvania cities of Allentown, Breinigsville and Reading, Bloomberg reported spokeswoman Vibha Agrawal as saying.
Another 1,000 or so of the job lost will be in Madrid, where the company plans to sell its plant and cease its chip-making operations by year end.
Agere will also reduce operations at a plant in Orlando, Florida.
Agere, which makes chips and fiber-optic components, will take a whopping US$900 million charge. It warned that sales this quarter will not hit forecasts.