Burroughs to Lay Off 300 in Southland : Plant Consolidation Will Idle 900 Altogether
Burroughs Corp. said Wednesday that, as the latest move in a continuing program of plant consolidation, it will lay off 900 employees by the end of September, including nearly 300 at manufacturing plants in Pasadena, Carlsbad and Rancho Bernardo.
The consolidations and plant closings will “enhance the productivity and competitiveness of our operations” and help the company “respond to the market with more efficient manufacturing operations,” said a spokesman for Burroughs, a computer manufacturer based in Detroit.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Feb. 15, 1986 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday February 15, 1986 Home Edition Business Part C Page 2 Business Desk 1 inches; 25 words Type of Material: Correction
Burroughs Corp. laid off 600 employees at its Memorex manufacturing plant in Westlake Village in January, 1985. An incorrect date was published in Thursday’s edition.
Burroughs will lay off 175 Pasadena-based employees who assemble and test the company’s V Series medium-size mainframe computers. Fifty more Pasadena employees will be transferred to a newer plant in Mission Viejo, and 300 others working in a related engineering operation in Pasadena will not be affected by the plant closing.
New Wisconsin Facility
More than 130 Burroughs employees in San Diego County may be laid off when the company moves its printed circuit board production line to a facility in Eau Claire, Wis., and trims other microcomponents operations in Carlsbad and Rancho Bernardo.
By the end of September, the San Diego County layoffs will eliminate 40 jobs in Burroughs’ Carlsbad-based distributed systems group and 70 jobs in its microcomponents operation in Carlsbad. Twenty-four microcomponents division employees were laid off Wednesday at the company’s 800-worker Rancho Bernardo plant, just north of San Diego.
“The company will try to find jobs within the company for those affected by the consolidation,” a Burroughs spokesman in Rancho Bernardo said. The company already has found jobs in Rancho Bernardo for 200 of its Carlsbad employees.
“This is a continuation of what they’ve been doing for the past five years since (Chief Executive W.) Michael Blumenthal arrived,” suggested Dean Gulis, an industry analyst with Roney & Co., a Detroit-based brokerage firm. “Although it’s not very good for the people who get laid off, (the consolidations and layoffs) have left Burroughs with some pretty good margins.”
Net Income Up
Net income rose 22% to $115.3 million, and revenue rose 8% to $1.48 billion during the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, Burroughs announced in January. Net income rose 1.3% to $248.2 million, and revenue rose 4.8% to a record $5.04 billion for all of 1985.
The computer manufacturer also announced Wednesday that there will be plant and research and development facility closings and layoffs in Florida, Colorado and Scotland.
Last month, Burroughs announced that it would lay off 600 employees at its Memorex Corp. manufacturing plant in Westlake Village. The company has more than 62,000 employees worldwide.
