AMD to cut 1,600 jobs, India safe

Global chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which has decided to lay off about 1,600 employees worldwide due to business slowdown and losses, said it would not lead to any job loss in its India operations.

"The job cuts are essentially at the global level but not in India. They are some of the rolls, which are found to be redundant in the company. The decision to slash about 10 per cent of the workforce worldwide will have no impact on our operations in the Indian subcontinent," AMD India managing director Alok Ohrie said.

The $6 billion, second largest American chipmaker for computing, graphics and consumer electronics announced, after the US stock markets closed, that it would reduce 10 per cent of its global payroll -- about 16,000 employees -- on account of worsening business conditions.

"On the contrary, our parent company is bullish about India. During the last quarter, we have hired about 250 people for business expansion and chip design services. In fact, our corporate headquarters is supportive of our expansion plans. We are seeing development taking place in our business and engineering operations," Ohrie pointed out.

He, however, declined to mention the total headcount in the wholly-owned Indian subsidiary, which has development centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad and marketing offices in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

AMD spokesman Drew Prairie said in a statement that the layoffs were part of a cost restructuring to enable the firm return to profit-making and would be applied across groups at all levels.

For the calendar year 2007, the California-based AMD reported a net loss of $3.4 billion, including non-cash charges of $2 billion on total revenue of $6.01 billion as against net loss of $166 million and revenue of $5.7 billion in 2006.

AMD India expanded its research and development operations in November 2007, with a new silicon design facility in Bangalore with 350 seats.

Opening the new centre then, AMD chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz said in its quest to become the technology partner of choice for the semiconductor industry, its Indian subsidiary would play a vital role in designing and delivering industry-leading solutions tailored to the needs of its customers in the subcontinent and the world over.

For the first quarter (January-March) of 2008, AMD has projected revenue of $1.5 billion in its guidance, which would be a decline of 15 per cent from the previous quarter due to lower-than-expected sales across all business segments.