BAGUIO CITY, Philippines ? Texas Instruments Philippines Inc., a unit of the US-based semiconductor maker, is shedding employees at its plant in a government-run special economic zone in this northern city, a government official said.
Earlier, another American firm, Lear Automotive Services (Netherlands) BV, which supplies wire harness to US carmakers General Motors, Chrysler and Ford and Japan?s Nissan, laid off workers at its plant in the Mactan Economic Zone in the central Philippines because of falling demand.
About 400 employees are scheduled to leave the Texas Instruments plant here on voluntary retirement and 100 have chosen to transfer to the Texas Instruments plant at the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga, north of Manila, an official of the Department of Labor and Employment said Thursday.
The department?s regional director, Ana Dione, has released a list of Texas Instruments employees who agreed to voluntary retirement.
The company has yet to issue a statement on its workforce status, but some employees told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that they each had been offered retirement benefits and some of them would get up to P1.5 million because of their length of service.
A labor inspector who visited the plant said it was still unclear whether the retirement package was part of a recession-triggered layoff because company documents gave no details on the workforce reduction.
The labor department?s deputy regional director, Sixto Rodriguez, said Texas Instruments Philippines might have also removed some employees after a performance evaluation.
Texas Instruments Philippines? main operations are here. It was the first to set up shop when the Baguio City Economic Zone was created around 1980.
Call centers in the Baguio special economic zone, like Sitel Philippines, continue to recruit workers, according to labor department reports, and Rodriguez said aircraft parts maker Moog Philippines, another firm with ties to the United States, was expanding its plant and had not reported any layoffs. Edited by INQUIRER.net
