Seagate has confirmed plans to close its manufacturing facilities in Malaysia as part of its corporate restructuring exercise. This will see the closure of the Seagate factories in Penang and Negri Sembilan.
The hard disk maker had earlier announced plans to reduce its workforce by 14-percent over the next 12 months. Early estimates put this at around 8,000 people; and it appears that Malaysians will be part of this reduction.
Seagate is dealing with a significant dip in sales, with the company selling 37 million HDDs in Q2 2016 – down from the 45.2 million it sold during the same time frame in 2015. The reduced number of PCs being shipped world wide has not helped the company’s bottom line either.
There has been no word on when the Malaysian manufacturing facilities will be closed, but it should be reasonably soon if the company is already commenting on it. In either case, it looks like Seagate’s plans to reduce its workforce is going to happen a lot faster than anyone expected.
[Source: New Straits Times]
