Ingram Micro Cuts Almost 1,000 Jobs in Texas

On Tuesday, giant tech distributor Ingram Micro’s shareholders overwhelmingly approved a $6 billion buyout offer by Tianjin Tianhai, a subsidiary of the Chinese conglomerate HNA Group. The same day, the company notified employees at its Fort Worth, Texas, facility of plans to cut 937 jobs.

A spokesman for Ingram Micro insisted the layoffs and the merger are unrelated. The cutbacks, he said, are the result of “changes in business activities conducted in this facility.”

Of the 937 people losing their jobs, 762 are contract workers with Elwood Staffing, and 175 are Ingram Micro Mobility associates, according to a WARN letter filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.

“We are working with the Texas Rapid Response Unit to provide human resources assistance to affected workers,” the company said in its statement. “We anticipate employing about 350 people after this action is taken. Ingram Micro Mobility has no further comment on this issue.”

The Fort Worth facility is part of Ingram Micro Mobility, which provides “device lifecycle services” including warehousing, software loading and end-user fulfillment. It also performs repair, refurbishment and recycling operations there.

Is this a signal that Ingram Micro is distancing itself from mobile device maintenance, or just another indicator of a market shift from hardware-associated revenue to solution-based revenue? For the nearly thousand workers in Texas, either scenario is discouraging.

Ingram Micro said in the WARN letter that the cuts will be permanent, and that they will begin in August of this year.