Some updates on LDK's layoff
from China's 21th Century Economics Report
The first round started from 04/08, targeting the wafer plants at Xinyu, where LDK headquarter is located. There is no further information about the second round yet except it will be done by 04/15.
The official critieria for layoff is the length working for LDK: workers with less than two years on the job will be let go. Some division may have set the bar to 3 years. There will be some pay package for the early termination: workers may get up to 3 months pay depending on their time with LDK.
There are about 10,000 workers in LDK's Xinyu wafer plants. Its wafer division has 11 plants for wafer cutting and 6 plants for making ingots. After the layoff, 4 wafer cutting plants and 3 ingot plants will be closed. One insider said there could be more closures depending on the business environment. Therefore, the rumored "a few thousand" layoff number sounds credible. My guess is it could be in the lower 2000.
LDK has a wafer capacity of 3.8 GW and a 2012 target module sale of about 1 GW. Without reducing wafer capacity, it has to sell 2.8 GW wafers in 2012 which is increasingly difficult as it is facing an uphill battle against GCL and SOL in terms of wafer efficiency and costs.
