A 150% rise in net profits to $141m for the first quarter came as a pleasant surprise to the market, which was not expecting such a sharp improvement and took the figures to mean that the company’s recovery is soundly-based. One of the problem areas has been the components and semiconductors division, but the company says that it looks set for continued healthy earnings in 1994 after improving operating profit in the first quarter by 99% to $201m. Chip demand has been healthy for computers, telecommunications and in the car industry – has been healthy since last year. The company gave an emphatic thumbs-down to all the costly employment legislation coming out of Brussels, saying that the focus in restructuring its workforce was on the cost of labour rather than the head-count.A head in Malaysia is a lot cheaper than a head in Europe, it said; it is therefore expanding its workforce in the Far East but cutting it in Europe.
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