Western Digital Denies Asia Closure Talk

Western Digital Corp., the Irvine disk-drive manufacturer, dismissed speculation that it planned to shut its Singapore or Malaysian plants.

“There is no such thing,” said a company spokesman said Thursday.

The company, fighting a global oversupply of disk drives that is flattening prices, has dismissed 480 workers in the past four months from its Singapore factories, where it makes disk drives and printed circuit boards.

There has been regular industry speculation about multinational electronics companies firing workers or closing plants amid a round of such reorganizations since the year started.

In late July, Seagate Technology Inc. and IBM Singapore Pte. also dismissed speculation that they planned to fire workers or shut their disk-drive operations in Singapore. Seagate got rid of 1,800 workers, or 10% of its work force, in January.

Various electronics makers also have cut the number of working days a week, or asked contract workers to leave to cut costs amid slowing demand.