At the last Seagate shareholder’s meeting, Maxtor was one of the hottest subjects. And with that meeting came Maxtor’s employees’ problems.

It seems that Seagate wants to lay off more then 50% of Maxtor’s employees. They will keep Maxtor brand name as well as some Maxtor services but more then 90% Maxtor employees from North America will be fired.

The only pieces of hardware that Seagate wants to keep from Maxtor are the 3.5-inch, 10,000 RPM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives and 500GB SATA hard drives. The rest will be disposed. As well as the workers.

In Asia, where Maxtor is stronger, Seagate won’t fire so many people, only 10% will be layed off. Malaysia and Singapore are the ones that will probably keep all their employees.

This move comes after Maxtor cut over 900 jobs to prepare for the acquisition by Seagate.

It seems that Seagate bought Maxtor only for their manufacturing plant in China, MMC (Maxtor Media, the platter manufacture) and the customers.

Seagate expects to lay off between 12,500 and 13,500 Maxtor employees. We feel sorry for the ones that are losing their jobs and for their families.