Posted on 11/08/2012 10:41:49 PM PST by My Favorite Headache
TE Connectivity, which makes electrical connectors for appliances and other devices, will close its factory in north High Point and eliminate 620 jobs, according to a company official.
The closure and layoffs will happen in phases through the end of 2013, said Tom Peacock, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania-based firm said. TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL) was known as Tyco Electronics until a name-change in 2011.
Peacock said the closure of the facility will not impact the company’s other Triad facilities, and 50 employees from the closing factory will be transferred locally. TE Connectivity has three other Triad facilities.
Peacock said work from the closing facility will be moved to plants in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Mexico and China.
“We need to improve operating efficiency as we see demand decline,” he said. “We are consolidating into those four other plants to be more efficient.”
Peacock said employees were notified of the impending closure and layoffs this morning. Severance arrangements will include temporary pay and benefits plus outplacement services.
Peacock said TE Connectivity owns the 225,000-square-foot factory and will probably sell it, though no definite plans for it have been made. He said the company considers the closure to be permanent.
In its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report, the company said it has been impacted by a “weaker than expected economic environment” and so was putting in place efforts to save about $75 million in costs each year.
The Piedmont Parkway closing is part of that effort, Peacock said. He said there have been no layoffs or other associated cost-saving efforts at the other Triad locations, but “we have informed our associates that there may be additional actions, but that’s true globally.”
TE Connectivity’s sales in the quarter were $3.36 billion worldwide, down from $3.75 billion a year earlier. Earnings per share were $0.76, down from $0.87 in the prior year.
The company projected a further decline in sales for the first quarter of 2013, to the range of $3.15 billion to $3.25 billion.
The layoffs hurt a region that is still struggling with high unemployment, despite recent economic development successes in the region, such as the announcement last month that BB&T Corp. that it expects to add about 1,700 Triad jobs during the next five years as it takes over the former American Express call center.
Loren Hill, president of the High Point Economic Development Corp., said the layoffs show the ups and downs in attracting and retaining jobs and that the region has long way to go in combating the job losses in recent years.
"It makes it clear that economic development efforts have to move forward at full throttle at all times," he said.
Good stuff! Keep it coming! The “rich” better get ready to pay some big taxes! The rest of us are all going to be unemployed!
HOORAY TE Connectivity! Prepare. Persevere.
Is Atlas starting to shrug?
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