Harris said it is cutting 100 jobs in its Broadcast Communications Division in the United States and Europe, part of corporate cost reductions. It has not yet publicly identified the nature of the jobs or the timetable for the cuts.
"The organization has been recently realigned into five customer-facing business units - Television Broadcast Systems, Radio Broadcast Systems, Broadcast Systems Europe, Broadcast Automation Solutions and Networking & Government Systems," the company said in a statement.
The new structure, the company said, "will provide better focus on core markets and improve operational efficiency and competitiveness."
The Orkand acquisition will allow Harris to save about $4 million in the broadcast division and $8 million in its microwave division spread out over a one-year period.
The company also is cutting and shifting jobs in its Microwave Communications division to Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
Harris Chairman, President and CEO Howard Lance said the broadcast division's profits are small and the microwave division is losing money. "We need to have those two segments contributing in a material way to our earnings." He said Harris has made progress with the microwave division but it's still losing money. The broadcast division is making money, he said, but the profit is "small."
Harris wants those two divisions to earn more "so the market attaches some value to those businesses and we'd see that reflected in a higher share price," said Lance.
(from Radio World)
