Western Digital to lay off 5% of work force

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 17 (Chinese media) -- Western Digital, a data storage pioneer and a longtime leader in the hard drive industry, announced on Wednesday that it is laying off about 2,500 people, or 5 percent of its global work force.

The company, based in Lake Forest of Southern California, is taking the steps because of the weak demand for its hard drives, said the announcement.

It was not immediately known how many jobs might be lost locally.

Meanwhile, the company said it is also taking other cost-saving measures which include reducing executive compensation; reducing manufacturing hours by 20 percent; closing three hard drive-manufacturing facilities in Thailand; closing or selling one of the company's two media substrate plants in Malaysia; and reducing capital spending for fiscal 2009 from 750 million to about 500 million dollars.

"In the current macro economic climate, we expect demand weakness to last well into the middle of the 2009 calendar year," said President and Chief Executive Officer John Coyne.

"Consequently, we are taking additional steps to immediately reduce production capacity and operating expenses on a longer-term basis across our entire business as we approach the seasonally weaker second half of our fiscal year."

As a result of the pending changes, the company anticipates total charges of around 150 million dollars incurred across the December and March quarters.