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Lenovo to lay off 50 workers at Morrisville headquarters, more worldwide

Lenovo's headquarters.

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Lenovo, the world’s fourth-largest PC manufacturer, is laying some 50 people at its global headquarters campus in Morrisville.

The layoffs are part of a company-wide “restructuring,” Lenovo spokesperson Ray Gorman told WRAL.com.

The local layoffs will occur between “now and the end of the year,” Gorman said. No particular business unit was affected, he added.

Lenovo employs some 1,680 people in Morrisville. The company, which bases most of its operations in China but operates globally, is in the process of building a third office complex in Morrisville. The building will open by year’s end, Gorman said.

Gorman declined to specify how many workers would be laid off worldwide.

“We are taking some restructuring actions,” he said. “They really are due to the unprecedented global economy that not just Lenovo is facing.”

Cutbacks would be made on a “geography-by-geography basis,” he added. “Some countries will be taking action and some won’t, based on their needs.”

Gorman would not rule out further cutbacks, either.

“I wouldn’t speculate about anything we would or wouldn’t do,” he said. “Look, we’re not immune to the challenges of the economy.”

The layoff news comes only days after analyst firm Gartner reported that Lenovo increased its PC shipments in the third quarter but lost global market share.

Lenovo upped deliveries by more than 500,000 from a year earlier, to 5.9 million units. However, its market share slid to 7.3 percent from 7.8 percent. That’s still good for fourth place behind HP, Dell and Acer. Acer, following its recent acquisitions of Gateway and Packard Bell (which Lenovo wanted) is pulling away, with shipments topping 10 million.

Lenovo’s shares increased 8.1 percent from 2007. However, HP is up 15 percent, Dell 11.6 percent and the combined Acer-Gateway-Packard Bell a whopping 47.3 percent.

In April of 2007, Lenovo cut its Triangle workforce by 350 people as part of a global reduction involving some 1,400 people.