Meanwhile, the company,s overall profitability was plummeting. A year earlier, shih had introduced an austerity campaign that had focused on turning lights off, using both sides of paper. Lui felt sterner measures were called for, particularly to deal with a payroll that had ballooned to 5,700 employees. Under an initiative dubbed metamorphosis, managers were asked to rank employee performance, identifying the top 15% and lowest 30%. In january 1991, 300 of the Taiwanbased "thirty percenters" were terminated Acer,s first major layoffs.