PERSONAL computer giant AST Research last week outlined plans to trim its worldwide workforce by 16 per cent - about 1,050 workers - as it consolidates the recently acquired Tandy Corp PC manufacturing business into its own production infrastructure.
The company said the job cuts would be offset in part at least by the expected creation of about 850 new jobs at facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, and Limerick, Ireland.
The consolidation does not effect AST's 160,000-square-foot-Hong Kong facility, although chairman and chief executive Safi Qureshey said the company had started a preliminary investigation into relocating part, or all, of the Hong Kong productive capacity to Shenzhen.
AST acquired Tandy's PC manufacturing capacity last June, making the company the sixth largest PC maker in the world, and the fourth largest in the United States.
''We have taken 90 days to fully assess the implications of our acquisition of Tandy's PC operations in an attempt to maximise the strengths of both organisations,'' Mr Qureshey said.
He said the consolidation of production resource was part of an on-going drive to improve cost effectiveness, as the industry had entered a ''critically competitive time''.
