Amid job-cutting, Dell's profit falls

Just a day after Dell laid off about 400 workers at its Winston-Salem computer factory, the company reported weaker quarterly sales and profit.

Dell is slashing jobs and cutting costs to offset slowing sales. Bigger rivals such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer are seeing sales increase.

Dell reported Thursday that profit fell 54 percent to $337million during the third quarter, which included the back-to-school shopping season. Sales dropped 15 percent to $12.9 billion.

On Wednesday, about 400 employees at the Winston-Salem plant worked their last shift, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. That plant, which opened in 2005 after Dell received the promise of more than $280 million in state and local incentives, is scheduled to close in January. About 900 workers will lose their jobs once the plant closes.

Company officials have blamed weaker demand for desktop PCs, which the Winston-Salem factory makes. Some of that production will be shifted to Mexico.

David Frink, a spokesman for Dell, told the Winston-Salem Journal that employees would receive two months of pay, an additional week of pay for every year they worked at the plant, two months ofCOBRA health-insurance coverage, a bonus for fiscal year 2010 goals that were met at the plant, and two months of outplacement services help.