Electronics giant Western Digital earlier this month offered its staff in Malaysia a voluntary separation scheme, targeting to slash its employees by up to 20 percent or about 1,200 people.

This was disclosed by the company to employees earlier this month but until the deadline last week, sources said, only "200 to 300" people have opted for the scheme.

"The offer pales in comparison to what was offered in separation schemes in 1999 and 2009," a source said.

western digital indonesian workers 1 For example, sources claimed, unlike the previous offers, the management this time capped the years of service to be considered as part of the payout to 12 years, which would mean that those who have served longer would lose out.

"When the targets were not met in 1999 and 2009, the company extended the deadline and managers started advising workers to take the scheme.

"This time, I believe they will roll out an involuntary separation scheme," the source added.

The move comes after Western Digital announced its US$4.25 billion (RM13.29 billion) acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST), which manufactures in China.

Nearly 1,000 workers at a Hitachi GST-owned plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen mounted a strike over severance pay in December 2011 in connection with the Western Digital acquisition.

Western Digital had also laid off 6 percent of its workers in Fremont this month, in what the San Jose Mercury News reported to be the company's second round of downsizing.

This is likely to be part of the company's move to relocate its manufacturing operations to low-cost China.

Poor recovery from floods

According to a posting on Western Digital Malaysia's employee bulletin, which has been re-posted on a public forum, Western Digital's vice-president for Asia Michael Meston said that this was due to the November 2011 floods that crippled its plant in Bang Pa-In, Thailand.

However, employees who spoke to Malaysiakini said that the Thai operations had "normalised" within two months of the floods.

ZDnet last April reported that the hard-drive maker said it had recovered its operations and supply chains damaged in the flooding to meet customer needs in Thailand and abroad.

When contacted, Meston said the voluntary separation offer was made following a "widely reported muted demand environment in the PC and technology hardware environments".

He said the scheme has been offered to employees at Western Digital manufacturing plants in Malaysia and Thailand, but declined to go into details, including the number of employees that would be affected.

"Except for the company's disclosures through regulatory filings, we do not discuss these matters publicly." Meston said.

Western Digital last month announced record earnings, posting revenue of US$12.5 billion (RM39.1 billion ) in revenue and profit of US$1.6 billion (RM5 billion).