The state of the global economy seems to have finally taken toll on motherboard vendors. A regular feature with companies gearing up for recession would be workforce reductions, and despite a larger than usual set of product launches, companies such as ASUS predict themselves not being able to meet their annual shipment goals. ASUS for one, is planning to layoff 5% of its total workforce, which amount to 200 workers, according to a report by DigiTimes. Says the report:

Although Asustek's revenues in 2008 will see a growth of over 20%, low gross margins for notebooks, netbooks and motherboards will cause the company's profits to drop 10-20% on year to NT$22-24.7 billion (US$654.96-735.34 million), noted the sources.

ASUS also predicts its revenues to hit bottom in the months of January and February, 2009. Meanwhile, other notable motherboard vendors such as MSI, Gigabyte and ECS are planning workforce reductions on an average of 3% each.