IBM, Motorola and Cray Plan Job Cuts

Persistent sluggish computer sales have prompted three more high-technology companies to trim their work forces.

Cray Research Inc., a Minneapolis supercomputer maker, said Monday that it was laying off about 400 employees in its Wisconsin manufacturing operations because of slowing demand for its state-of-the art scientific machines. The layoffs represent about 7% of the company’s worldwide work force of about 5,400.

Motorola Inc., of Schaumburg, Ill., announced that it is reducing its work force by 2.4%, or 2,500 salaried employees, and taking a pretax charge of about $43 million in the third quarter to cover the cost of the cuts.

Finally, International Business Machines Corp. confirmed that it has offered employees at four locations voluntary severance, an offer company officials said they expected about 600 to 1,000 workers to accept.

The offer at IBM was the third time in recent years that the company has offered voluntary severance, or early retirement, packages to its employees, and a company spokesman said it was “probably not the last one.”

IBM officials said the latest offer was unrelated to its announcement last week that its third-quarter earnings, and possibly those for all of 1989, to be lower than last year.

The layoffs at Cray are the first major force reduction in the company’s 17-year history. Chairman John Rollwagen said the company had avoided factory staff reductions in the past because growth in market demand had more than compensated for increasingly automated manufacturing processes.

“Today, however, our rate of growth has slowed, and the technical advances move as fast, if not faster, than before,” he said.

The company said all costs associated with the manufacturing work force reduction would be incurred in 1989, and are expected to total about $3 million.

Motorola said its cuts would be made immediately and would primarily affect the company’s U.S.-based communications and semiconductor products operations, its two largest segments.

Motorola said it was taking the “one-time action” to bring some of the company’s businesses “into balance with changing business and market conditions,” and said it hoped to make the necessary reductions entirely through voluntary severance and attrition. However, a spokesman said some layoffs might be necessary.