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Saturday March 21, 2009

Multinational companies offer VSS packages to employees


GEORGE TOWN: Two multinational corporations, Jabil Circuit and Flextronics, recently offered voluntary separation scheme (VSS) packages to their employees.

Jabil Circuit offered VSS to more than 200 of its 5,000-odd employees based in Penang.

The company’s regional human resources director (Asia) Rajedar Singh said the VSS was offered about a week ago because the measures implemented so far to cut costs were not effective enough.

He said the company has so far reduced working hours for outsourced foreign workers, cut overtime, imposed travel control, and implemented a shorter working week.

“The VSS exercise will not affect the growth of our global IT hub as well as the global supply chain in Penang.

“The IT hub, which ran a two-page advertisement in a local newspaper recently, continues to look out for talent to fill its more than 50 open positions,” he added.

Early this year, foreign media reports had said Jabil would reduce its worldwide work-force of 85,000 by around 3,000.

Flextronics operations in Seberang Prai is targeting about 5% of its employees in Penang for the VSS it initiated early this month.

So far, about 100 employees out of the 6,000 workers employed in Penang had taken up the offer, a source told The Star.

Flextronics, which has its headquarters in Singapore and operates five facilities in Seberang Prai, recently laid off some 1,382 workers from its assembly plant in Shah Alam and will shut down the facility by the end of the month.

Jabil Circuit and Flextronics both build and assemble printed circuit boards used for computers and ICT infrastructure.

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