A Democrat had to have written this.
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Triquint takes 'humanistic approach' to layoffs
NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Communications chip maker TriQuint Semiconductor Inc.(NasdaqNM:TQNT - news) has laid off a significant part of its work force, but does not want to say exactly how many jobs have been cut in order to promote ``a humanistic approach'' to firing people, a company executive said Friday.
``We just feel that it's not fair to the employees themselves,'' TriQuint Chief Financial Officer Ed Whitehurst told Reuters. "We don't want them to feel like they graduated in the top 10 percent of their class vs. the bottom 10 percent of the class. If we put that number in there, it makes the employees feel like they are in the lower echelon.
``It's more of a people thing,'' he said.
When asked if the job cuts, first reported in The Oregonian newspaper, amounted to more than 5 percent of the work force, Whitehurst said yes, but declined to comment on whether it was more than 20 percent.
Whitehurst told The Oregonian that keeping mum about the numbers was an attempt ``to take a more humanistic approach.''
``That's what we're trying, we really are,'' Whitehurst told Reuters. ``It went very smoothly, because we are such nice guys.''
Whitehurst said the layoffs were the first the company has had in many years, and were in response to a slowdown that caused the company to warn its fiscal first-quarter results would be a disappointment.
``Everyone knows we revised our guidance a couple of weeks ago, and this is in line with that reduction of our guidance,'' he said.
TriQuint said its sales for the quarter could be $80 million, a decline from the $90.3 million posted in the fourth quarter.
Like the rest of the chipmaking sector, TriQuint has been suffering from oversupply of communications gear. Its stock on Friday fell $2.00, or 9.9 percent, to $18.26 on the Nasdaq market.
biz.yahoo.com
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