Merrimack, NH–PC Connection, a $1.45 billion computer cataloger, said on March 28 that it was eliminating 125 jobs, or 7.5% of its workforce, taking a one-time $1 million charge for restructuring costs. The layoffs comes the PC Connection’s announces that first-quarter earnings will fall below expectations.
For the quarter ending March 31, PC Connection expects earnings per share in the range of $0.10-$0.12 per share, before charges, and net sales of $295 million-$300 million. But analysts had been anticipating earnings per share of $0.21, according to the research firm Thomson Financial/First Call. For the first quarter of last year, the cataloger reported earnings per share of $0.29 on sales of $334 million.
“Clearly, our earnings are not only lower than we had expected but significantly lower than last year’s,” says president/chief operating officer Wayne Wilson. “And with sales actually declining this quarter, we felt it appropriate” to make the job cuts.
Wilson blames the sales slowdown on a decline in businesses’ investment in information technology services. “I’ve seen two reports in the past week that suggest that overall IT spending will be negative this quarter vs. the first quarter of 2000, down 4%-8%,” he says. “That comes despite dramatic growth in IT spending as recently as the third quarter last year.”