Tech Going To Bleed More

Tech stocks going to bleed profusely in the next few quarters. Inventory is building up rapidly while back-end customers are reducing orders. Here is another bad news from Western Digital.

Western Digital to Cut 2,500 Jobs, Halt Production (Update2)

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Western Digital Corp., the world’s second-largest maker of hard-disk drives, plans to cut 2,500 jobs and halt most of its production for almost two weeks after orders slowed.

The cuts equal 5 percent of the workforce, Western Digital said in a statement today. Sales this quarter will be as much as $1.8 billion, less than the $2.03 billion or more predicted Oct. 23, the Lake Forest, California-based company said. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey projected $1.98 billion.

Western Digital also plans to reduce the use of temporary workers and make executives, including Chief Executive Officer John Coyne, take pay cuts. The economic slump has led to lower prices than forecast, and the company now expects the slowdown to last through the middle of 2009, Coyne said in the statement.

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