Global Shift As Manufacturing Goes Low-Cost Some firms that bought or built plants in healthier times are struggling these days.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: JED GRAHAM

JDS Uniphase Corp. helped define the boundaries of the tech wreck.

It went from making the largest-ever tech hardware acquisition to the first-ever $50 billion write-off.

Now the fiber-optic firm's aptly named Global Realignment Program is marking another trend: the shift in production from North America and Western Europe to China and other low-cost regions.

Companies like JDS, which geared up for a sustained boom, have little choice but to close plants and cut jobs, analysts say. And most of those cuts are coming in high-wage areas like the U.S.

"It's a troubling trend," said Randall Sherman, president of New Venture Research Corp., a Nevada City, Calif.-based consultant on electronics manufacturing. "With so much surplus capacity now, there's a definite move to shut down higher-cost domestic facilities and shift assemblies offshore."

In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, JDS said it's shutting one-third of its 6 million square feet of plant capacity while "moving the manufacturing of many of our established products to our facility in Shenzen (in China)." The company's also cut its work force from 29,000 to 11,000.