FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – Audio giant Bose Corp. will layoff about 1,000 workers, or 10 percent of its total workforce, the company announced Jan. 20. The company cited economic challenges associated with the global recession and a marked drop in consumer spending in announcing the job cuts.

“We have been staffed for a growing economy, not a global recession. As a global company, we are responding to these challenges,” Bose said in a statement e-mailed to the IndUS Business Journal. Bose spokesman Jonathan Previtera declined to comment further on the layoffs.

Based in Framingham, Mass., Bose was launched in 1964 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumnus Amar Bose. The company develops and manufactures a range of audio equipment including speakers, amplifiers, headphones and automotive sound systems.

A privately owned company, Bose had grown exponentially and appeared to weather previous economic downturns relatively well. The announced job cuts are the largest round of layoffs ever made by the company. Bose did lay off about 160 employees from a South Carolina facility in 2004.

Sales of electronics equipment, which had enjoyed strong uninterrupted growth over the past decade, have been hit hard by the current recession. The Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group, recently scaled back its forecasts of electronics sales for the fourth quarter of 2008, from 3.5 percent to 0.1 percent.

Last month, electronics retail giant Circuit City announced it was going out of business and closing all 567 of its U.S. stores. High end electronic retailer Tweeter, based in Canton, Mass., entered into bankruptcy in 2007 and announced that it was liquidating all 90 of its remaining stores in November. Even Best Buy, the nation’s largest electronics retailer, reported a 77 percent drop in profits for the third quarter of 2008 and offered voluntary severance packages to 4,000 of its employees. In making the announcement, executives at Best Buy acknowledged the company was facing “the most challenging consumer environment” in its history.

Industry analysts say the economic environment is spurring consumers to look to lower-priced electronics equipment, which likely hurt Bose because the company focuses largely on high-end products. The recent sharp drop in auto sales also likely hit Bose as well, because a significant portion of the company focuses on automotive audio sales.

In November 2006 Bose acquired over 180,000 square feet of office space in Westborough, Mass. to expand its sales and services operations. The company operates six plants and 175 retail stores in the United States. The company has an estimated $2 billion a year in sales.