UK staff exit Gateway

More than 3000 Gateway employees are to lose their jobs following the firm's disappointing financial performance last year.

More than 3000 Gateway employees are to lose their jobs following the firm's disappointing financial performance last year.

A Gateway representative confirmed the redundancies will affect workers in the UK, although the exact number of staff to get the axe has not been revealed.

Gateway released its fourth-quarter results last week which showed a full year 2000 profit of $315.9m (£214m) from turnover of $9.7bn - a 28 per cent decrease on the previous year.

The company issued a profit warning last month), which claimed that figures would be "significantly lower" than Wall Street estimates.

Tyson Heyn, corporate communications manager at Gateway, said: "We are very disappointed that the figures didn't even live up to our revised expectations."

The job cuts will be in all sectors, Heyn said, including manufacturing, administration, retail and management. Affected staff will be notified over the coming weeks, he added. "The economic reality is that [PC sales] is a weak market right now and we have to do what is right in terms of spending and streamlining expenses."

Gateway is expected to see continued poor performance in the first two quarters of 2001, but the vendor is hopeful that turnover will grow by three per cent in the first quarter.

Computacenter, one of Gateway's largest UK resellers, said the vendor's financial results will have no effect on its relationship with the company.

First published in Computer Reseller News