Celestica will Close Oklahoma City Factory

This news was first published on http://www.pcb007.com.

The Associated Press (AP) has reported that Canada-based EMS provider Celestica will shutter its Oklahoma City PCB operation by November and do away with 450 jobs.

Citing Steve Delaney, Celestica's president of operations for the Americas, the AP reported that Celestica intends to shift remaining work from Oklahoma City to other Celestica facilities.

At its peak in the 1970s, the Oklahoma City factory had more than 9,500 employees, said the AP. Now, Celestica reportedly is negotiating with local union officials and will offer severance packages to affected workers.

Celestica bought the Oklahoma City operations from Lucent Technologies in September 2001, in a deal under which workers at the plant continue to build PCBs for Lucent. In July 2002, Celestica announced that it would cut 500 jobs (half of its workforce at the Oklahoma City site) by the end of last year.