SiliconBeat

The compensation committee for Bookham, the San Jose optical component firm that decided in January to pay performance-based bonuses to five of its top executives despite the fact that they didn’t achieve their goals, has now decided to reduce the pay of all of its executives by “approximately ten percent,” according to a filing today with the SEC.

The pay cuts will start April 1, and shall “remain in effect until Read the rest of this entry »

The board of dir, ectors at Applied Materials took more of the medicine it doled our to the company’s top executives earlier this week when they cut the size of their retainers by ten percent. The reduction is in addition to the 10 percent retainer reduction the board took in December and makes their pay cut the same as the 20 percent pay reduction the company’s senior officers have taken, according to a filing today with the SEC.

In September, the board’s compensation committee decided to raise the amount paid as a retainer to non-employee directors from Read the rest of this entry »

The compensation committee of Finisar’s board of directors had second thoughts about restricted stock awards they authorized for the company’s named executives last month, slashing their value days after the company cut jobs and reduced benefits.

What happened to change their minds? Read the rest of this entry »

If job anxiety has a sound, it just got louder in Silicon Valley today when its largest company reported an unexpectedly dramatic slowdown in sales for its fiscal 2009 first quarter. One result is that the company is “reducing base pay and certain benefits across the company” beginning this quarter, according to remarks Cathie Lesjak made on the company’s earnings conference call this afternoon.

After the call was over, HP distributed more details of the pay reductions, including Read the rest of this entry »

Zilog of San Jose is the latest chip maker to announce job cuts and salary reductions, along with a 23 percent drop in sales for its fiscal 2009 third quarter compared with the year-before quarter and a more than doubling of its net loss.

“The rapid contraction in the global economy and the clouded outlook for demand has caused us to take significant cost reduction actions that included a 35 percent reduction in our worldwide headcount and a 10 percent salary reduction for all of our North America employees along with executive staff.” said Darin Billerbeck, Zilog’s president and chief executive officer.

In August, the company reached a temporary truce with Bryant Riley, its largest shareholder,  who wanted to nominate his own director to the board and sought changes to the company’s by-laws.

Aviza Technology boss Jerry Cutini said today he was “very pleased by our employees’ performance” during its fiscal 2009 first quarter, according to a statement included inthe company’s earning release. The company reported a $1.3 million net profit compared with an $8.5 million net loss in the year-before quarter. This despite a 26 percent year-over-year drop in sales.

Cutini said in a statement Tuesday that “the effects of our cost reduction and cost control programs were Read the rest of this entry »