Western Digital to Shut Down Camarillo Plant

Western Digital Corp., an Irvine electronics manufacturer, said Thursday that it will close its Camarillo plant by Feb. 8, a move expected to result in 135 workers receiving their walking papers.

Company officials said the shutdown is not a belt-tightening move, but was ordered because the Camarillo location is outdated. The 4-year-old circuit board facility “has been our highest-cost facility and . . . upgrading it would not have been economically sound,” said Edward L. Marinaro, executive vice president and chief operating officer.

The move will cost the company $1.5 million to $2.5 million in severance pay and closure costs, the company said.

The layoffs are the latest in a series at the Camarillo plant, which had as many as 900 permanent and temporary employees in its heyday in mid-1985.

Since then, Western Digital has been winding down the operation, gradually shifting production of its printed circuit-board products to lower-cost facilities in Irvine, Puerto Rico and Ireland, Marinaro said.

Some Openings in Irvine

About 40 of the 135 affected workers will be interviewed for openings at the company headquarters in Irvine, but Marinaro said he does not expect them to accept jobs. About 1,200 of the company’s 2,859 employees work in Irvine, a 2 1/2-hour drive from Camarillo. Another 20 to 30 workers from Camarillo already have relocated to the Orange County headquarters, Marinaro said.

Once a victim of the high-technology shakeout, Western Digital rebounded sharply last year, reporting net earnings of $21.4 million, contrasted with a $4.6-million loss a year earlier. The company’s $279.4 million in revenues for its fiscal 1986 represented a 58% increase from $177.2 million a year earlier.

The announcement came one day after the company announced a $7.3 million order from Armstrad, a major English manufacturer of personal computers.