Numonyx tells INQ 30 per cent layoffs "not news"

NUMONYX, Intel and ST Microelectronics' orphaned love child, is to lay off 30 per cent of its US workforce over the next week.

The NOR flash memory maker's revenues dropped some 25 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year and another 25 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, with no turnaround in sight.

The news comes just a month after Numonyx nemesis Spansion declared bankruptcy, as flash memory makers continue their titanic sink into the land of "forget me not". Cash flow is apparently not the problem, but Numonyx is just not cutting the mustard as far as shareholders are concerned.

Numonyx's Israeli Fab1 - formerly Intel's Fab 18 - will also be seeing 100 of its 1,300 employees pack their workstations up into recycled cardboard boxes as they head to the door, while the firm's Italian staff are thought to be safe thanks to the Italian government pitching in for 30 per cent of the firm's work-time reduction.

The Israeli layoffs, however, have been some time coming, with the fab already shutting shop for a week back in February, on weekends, and next week for seven days over Israel's Passover holiday. The company has also been laying off contract workers.

When the INQ called Numonyx's Israeli PR, Natali Itah, to confirm, she answered the phone, barked "Rega, rega" (basically, "Wait!"), proceeded to leave the phone on speaker to finish a rather banal account of her weekend with her co-worker, only to get back to us and snap: "This is not news!"

Realising her response might have been a tad hasty, Ms Itah backtracked a bit, spluttering she was not willing to talk numbers, and referred the INQ to the Israeli press (in Hebrew) when we asked her for an official statement.

Mind you she can pout, as a Facebook page reveals. µ