StockerYale adds more info on job cuts

Salem-based StockerYale’s workforce cut could affect the Salem facility, according to a recent filing with the Security and Exchange Commission.

The company previously announced that it had planed to cut its workforce by 14 percent, but has thus far failed to say how many positions will be cut, where they will be cut, and whether they will be cut through layoffs or attrition.

The cuts were announced as part of the company’s attempt to abandon older product lines — including optic illumination products and galvanometers — to newer, faster-growing product lines, such as lasers, LEDs and specialty optical fiber.

Galvanometers – used as beam positioning elements in laser optical systems – are manufactured at the firm’s Salem facility, where some 35 people are employed.

The Salem facility was recently sold to raise much-needed cash for the company, which plans to lease the plant and sublease some of the unused space.

The filing also said that StockerYale plans to sell its operations in Singapore and Malaysia by the end of the first fiscal quarter of 2006. The sales and service operations in Asia consist of two leased facilities employing 10 people.

The filing said the cost of these changes – originally announced as up to $2 million – will be between $800,000 and $1.2 million – in the last quarter of 2005. The costs will be non-cash costs, the company said, and will not affect its cash position, which had been rather precarious, but has improved since the sell-off of the Salem facility and another one in Canada. – BOB SANDERS