The small fridge plant at the Electrolux factory in Orange closed its doors for the final time last Friday.
The closure of the plant, which was announced last April, was part of a restructure to make the Edward Street plant more globally competitive.
Plant manager Scott Ostini said the plant was due to shut at the end of February, but it had closed at lunchtime on Friday, slightly ahead of schedule.
He said of the final 45 people employed in the small fridge plant, 15 had been offered permanent full-time positions in the main factory. The other 30 chose to accept voluntary redundancies, he said.
This opportunity for redeployment had come about because of changed circumstances in the main plant since the announcement about the closure, he said.
Mr Ostini said another 20 employees would be affected by a ‘winding down’ of operations in the chest freezers section of the factory between now and September.
However, he expressed some optimism that positions in the large fridge section of the factory might be available for those workers by September.
Electrolux’s Orange plant is undergoing a $30 million cost cutting exercise over three years.
This was to improve overall efficiencies and competitiveness, Mr Ostini said.
About 200 workers have been made redundant at the factory over the past 12 months.
He said the Orange plant would still need “to relentlessly reduce the cost of production because of competition from low cost operators like China”.
From Central Western Daily