By the end of the year AST Research Inc will employ just 500 staff, a far cry from the 3,400 it used to have on the payroll. The troubled Samsung Electronics Co Ltd-owned company has been shedding jobs for the past couple of years, totaling 80% of its total workforce to 600, with a further 100 jobs scheduled to go before the year is out. The personal computer manufacturer said when it got rid of 1,120 staff in April that it had fallen foul to ferocious competition and cutting in the market place (CI No 3,304). Last April it reduced its worldwide staff by 25% in response to lower than expected first quarter results (CI No 3,145). Now the company is finalizing restructuring plans and will focus its attention on the production of PCs and servers for the office. Times seem to be particularly rough now, and a story in the Korean Mail Business Newspaper reports that Samsung has announced that AST has sold assets worth $64m, which include a factory in Ireland and its headquarters in Irvine, California. If all goes according to Samsung’s plan, AST will claw its way back to respectability in terms of sales next year. AST was unavailable to comment on its plans as we went to press.
