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Michael Kanellos | January 10, 2009 at 9:54 AM 5 Comments

SunEdison Has Layoffs Too; About 50, Says Former Employee

After posting a story about Optisolar, the solar panel maker that also wants to build and run utility-scale power parks, laying off 300 employees (about half of its staff) we received a message from a former employee of SunEdison, the power provider based in the East.

In December, the company laid off around 50 to 65 employees, according to the source. The source is good in this situation—he’s one of the employees who was laid off. He said the company officially told him the cuts came to around 50 people, but the company grapevine put it closer to 65.

Because SunEdison’s business is governed by signing big power providing agreements, it is affected by the credit crunch. After all, the company doesn’t sell equipment to customers. It only sells power. SunEdison (or its partners) thus have to put up the capital.

We will try to get more from the company next week. The former employee, by the way, added that SunEdison treated him fairly in the process and that he does not harbor any ill will.

Alternative energy remains one of the few, if only, segments in the tech economy still attracting investors, but the tough times are still hitting it hard. Besides the layoffs at Optisolar and SunEdison, Pacific Ethanol temporarily shut down its 40 million gallon a year plant in Madera, Calif.

‹ Older | Pacific Ethanol Temporarily Suspends Its 40 Million a Gallon Plant Mayfield Cranks Up Green Effort by Recruiting Todd Kimmel | Newer ›

Comments [5]

  • Naveed Hingora 01/11/09 4:05 PM

    Seems like the immunity of the green tech companies to the economic down-fall is slowly eroding.
    I have seen many green tech companies that operate in a way in which they depend a lot on immediate funding to keep them going during their initial phase. Shouldn’t there be way of reaping short-term benefits so that the company can at least continue operating without having to resort to such drastic cost-cutting measures?

     Reply
  • Anon Ymous 01/12/09 6:55 PM

    The layoffs at SunEdison and Optisolar are not indicative of the financial crisis, but gross mismanagement. The have never had the business to justify the overhead they had incurred.

     Reply
  • bigman 04/7/09 1:11 PM

    Actually, Sun Edison has laid off between 40-50% of staff, down to 250-270 from 500 last summer.

     Reply
  • DERTY 04/20/09 5:06 AM

    As one of the MANY laid off from Sun Edison in late March 09, I think it would be safer to say that they cut around 70-80% across the board. Lay offs came in a wave from west coast to east coast. Our explanation was a crumbling economy but we had heard from a good source days before the layoff that Sun Edison wants to remove themselves from building solar and move towards only selling power.  I cant speak for the other previous employees, But after my years of service to the company I felt that our severance was a joke.

     Reply
  • job hunter queries from maryland 06/19/09 6:12 AM

    Is SunEdison on the way out or restructuring? Is its decline one of the reasons why no one ever answers the phone there?

     Reply

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