American Superconductor To Cut 150 Jobs, 20% Of Staff
BOSTON (CBS) - American Superconductor Corp. (Nasdaq: AMSC) said it is cutting 150 jobs, about 20 percent of its global workforce, as it grapples with drastically lower revenue resulting from contractual issues with its largest customer.
The Devens, Mass.-based power technologies company is making the job cuts across all of its locations, with roughly 20 percent of each location's staff being eliminated, said spokesman Jason Fredette.
The company had already announced a reduction of about 50 jobs in late May, Fredette said.
Lisa van der Pool of the Boston Business Journal reports:
Fredette did not have precise figures for the impact on the company's Devens staff from the two rounds of layoffs, but the company had said earlier this year that it employed 184 in Massachusetts.
American Superconductor said it is making the layoffs in response to the problems with Sinovel Wind Group Co., a Chinese wind power firm that has been the largest customer by far for American Superconductor's wind turbine components and designs.
The company said it expects to report a "significant net loss" for the quarter ended June 30, with revenue expected to be less than $10 million. The company had previously been enjoying profitable quarters with more than $100 million in revenue a quarter, but the business has struggled since an April announcement that Sinovel would not accept shipments of turbine parts from American Superconductor.
American Superconductor said the job cuts will allow the company to reduce its expenses by $30 million. The cuts will bring the company's global headcount to 600.
