WILTSHIRE FILE CO., INC. VS. NLRC193 SCRA 665FELICIANO, J.

FACTS:
1.Private respondent Vicente Ong was the Sales Manager of petitioner from March 16, 1981 up to June 18, 1985.
2.On 13 June 1985, upon private respondent's return from a business and pleasure trip abroad, he was informed by the
President of petitioner that his services were being terminated.
3.Private respondent maintains that he tried to get an explanation from management of his dismissal but to no avail.
4.When private respondent again tried to speak with the President of petitioner, the company's security guard handed
him a letter which formally informed him that his services were being terminated upon the ground of redundancy.
ISSUE: Whether or not private respondent is validly terminated.
HELD: The Court indeed found that petitioner had serious financial difficulties before, during and after the termination of the services of
private respondent. The company showed a net loss of P4,431,321.00 in its audited financial statements. Moreover, Wiltshire finally
closed its doords and terminated all operations in the Philippines on January 1987, barely 2 years after the termination of private
respondent.
The Court considered that finally shutting down business operations constitutes strong confirmatory evidence of petitioner's previous
financial distress. It is also to be noted that the letter informing private respondents of the termination of his services used the word
redundant, that letter also referred to the company having incurred financial losses which in fact has compelled it to resort to
retrenchment to prevent further losses. Thus, what the letter was in effect saying was that because of financial losses, retrenchment
was necessary, which in turn resulted in the redundancy of private respondent's position.
That no other person was holding the same position that private respondent held prior to the termination of his services, does not show
that his position had not become redundant. Redundancy, for purposes of the Labor Code, exists where the services of an employee
are in excess of what is reasonably demanded by the actual requirements of the enterprise. A position is redundant where it is
superfluous, and superfluity of a position or positions maybe the outcome of a number of factors such as over hiring of workers,
decreased volume of business, or dropping of a particular product line or service activity previously manufactured or undertaken by the
enterprise.