LITTLE ROCK — One hundred and forty workers will lose their jobs by the end of 2012 as the Bosch Security Systems plant in Morrilton closes.
Company officials said they expect the first phase of layoffs to begin in April. Bosch spokesman Becky MacDonald said Thursday that some work may move to Mexico.
The Morrilton plant makes speakers, such as those used with stereos, as well as speaker components.
“It’s not a cost-competitive product to be making in [the Morrilton] facility,” MacDonald said. “We have other facilities in the North America region and most of the work will move to [them].”
Management announced the closure on Wednesday to workers at the plant.
Bosch Security Systems is a division of the Bosch Group, a privately held firm based in Germany, Mac-Donald said. The plant was purchased as part of Bosch’s acquisition of Telex Communications Holding Inc. in 2006, she said.
MacDonald was unsure of when the Bosch operation began and its peak employment.
Morrilton is in Conway County, which had an unemployment rate of 7.7 percent in October, compared with 7.4 percent for all of Arkansas. The numbers are not seasonally adjusted.
John Gibson, president of the Conway County Economic Development Corp. and the Morrilton Area Chamber of Commerce, said state officials will be assessing the skills of the plant’s work force so economic development groups can market the employees to companies considering the area.
“We’d like to go ahead and do it as quickly as possible so that information will be available for prospects,” he said.
The county has manufacturers ranging from companies that service the natural-gas field industry with roughly 50-175 workers, to the Green Bay Packaging plant, which has almost 400 workers, Gibson said.
However, Gibson said he knew of no existing plants that were hiring, adding that things in the sector are “fairly slow right now.”
Gibson said the Bosch layoffs are “not a good thing, but it’s good from the standpoint that they could have come in and said, ‘Here’s your pink slip, here’s your two weeks’ pay and sayonara, we’re going to see you later.’”
Bosch is giving the workers severance compensation and several months’ notice, he added.
“That’s pretty good lead time,” he said.
Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said the last time the facility received incentives from the state was in 2000, when it was owned by Telex and received a cash rebate, as well as an income-tax incentive, based on job creation and other factors.
Business, Pages 30 on 12/16/2011