Quanta Display has laid Off 1,400 people before merger with AUO

Preparing for the eventual merger with AU Optronics Corp. (AUO) on October 1, Quanta Display Inc. (QDI) has laid off about 1,400 employees and the move is not complete, according to the Employment Service Center of Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli Region.

AUO is currently Taiwan's No. 1 thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display (TFT-LCD) panel maker, while QDI the No. 4.

Innolux Display Corp., a local newcomer in the TFT-LCD line, has contacted the employment services center to express willingness to take in all the laid-off workers.

According to the center, the laid-off employees between the ages 35 to 40 have better chances to find new jobs in the neighboring Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park or other panel plants, so may not have registered with the employment services center. Most of the production-line workers, however, the center pointed out, refuse to work for AUO's panel plants in Longtan, Taoyuan County.

Another group of about 100 employees were also laid off by Arima Computer Corp., a major contract notebook PC supplier. The job center said that might be the final wave of layoffs in the local notebook PC line, virtually all of the production of which have already moved to mainland China.

According to the Taoyuan County Federation of Labor and regional service center, QDI offered better-than-average terms to the laid-off employees, hence did not trigger any labor-management disputes.

Taoyuan County has become a mecca for major TFT-LCD panel manufacturers, including AUO, QDI, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Ltd., which is the ranked third. The AUO-QDI merger plus many other plant closures have elevated the county's unemployment rate to 3.9% in the second quarter, higher than the national average of 3.87%.

In the second quarter, the service center said, 395 companies have laid off a total of 2,251 employees, double that in the previous quarter. Taoyuan Magistrate Chu Li-lun thinks that the high rate of layoffs should be related to impatience of many companies, who can wait no longer for the government to lift the ban on direct transportation to China and so are moving across the Strait.

source & copyright: CENS