Jul 25, 2001
The supervisory board at Infineon, Europe's second-largest chip maker, will meet to discuss plans to slash the semiconductor's payroll, the Wall Street Journal Europe said, citing a trade union representative.
Only on Monday Infineon posted a heavy operating loss for the quarter ending in June, saying it did not rule out job cuts. A spokeswoman for the firm declined to comment on the Journal report or say whether the supervisory board was meeting.
"We presented our Q3 figures on Monday and stated in a telephone conference call that we cannot rule out reductions in our workforce in general. Given a continuously difficult market environment, that is something everybody is contemplating," spokeswoman Katja Schlendorf told Reuters.
Infineon said on Monday that it saw no signs of recovery and forecast a full-year loss, echoing gloomy statements from chipmakers worldwide, struggling under a surplus of unsold components as demand sags for products like mobile phones and computers.
Parent Siemens also posted a heavy underlying loss for the third quarter, due primarily restructuring charges at its telecommunications operations. Excluding exceptional items or Infineon results, the group posted a loss of 489 million euros.
The German technology giant reported third quarter net profit of 1.608 billion euros ($1.40 billion), boosted by 3.459 billion euros from the transfer of a stake in Infineon to its pension fund.
Infineon Chief Executive Ulrich Schumacher has already imposed a hiring freeze.
