Irish jobs at stake as Quantum axes 800 staff

Struggling hard-drive manufacturer Quantum has revealed that it will cut its workforce by up to 800 over the next 12 months.

Most of the losses will come from Quantum's headquarters in Milpitas, California, with 115 redundancies effective immediately. But a large cull is also expected at its drive configuration and warehouse centre in County Louth, Ireland.

Engineering jobs will be reduced drastically, as the manufacturer reduces the number of customised drives it makes, and some warehouse jobs will also go.

Quantum also intends to swallow a $50m charge this quarter as part a restructure aimed at helping it stay profitable in the highly competitive drive market.

John Gannon, president of the hard disk drive unit at Quantum, said: "The goal of this restructure is to adapt our business to the changing needs of our PC customers. The growth of the low-cost PC market is a challenge for virtually every firm in the PC supply chain, and Quantum is no exception."

Last week, Mike Brown, president and chief executive of Quantum, issued a plea to the hard-drive industry to put an end to the "crazy" price cutting that is damaging all the main players in the market. Hardware rivals Seagate Technology and Western Digital have also experienced a drop in share prices recently due to severe price cuts and falling profit.

"No-one is making any money in the disk drive business today," Gannon said.

Quantum stated that its high-end drive operation would remain largely unaffected by the restructure as business was still healthy in that sector.

But it added that any profit was being offset by the continuing price war in the sub-$700 PC market.