As Electrolux moves hundreds of jobs from Greenville to Mexico, the company is trying to take hundreds more with it.
A symposium is being held next week in Mexico for Electrolux suppliers. Five suppliers, nearly 500 jobs, are what’s at stake when Electrolux moves a Greenville plant to Mexico.
Neither Electrolux nor any of the five suppliers in Greenville will confirm who is going to Mexico or if they will stay.
In an industrial park on the east side of Greenville are some of the smaller companies that supply the town’s biggest employer, Electrolux.
Alric Jones’ employer, Holm Industries, is one of several Electrolux suppliers invited to Mexico to check out the company’s new plant site and decide the benefits of a similar move. To Jones, it’s a foregone conclusion. “If Electrolux and gaskets leave, it’ll be useless for us to be here,” he says.
Electrolux won’t confirm which suppliers have been invited. None of the companies 24 Hour News 8 talked to will say if they’ve decided to make the trip. The invitations come just three months after Electrolux announced the Greenville closing, putting 2,700 people out of work by 2005.
But with their biggest customer, Electrolux, moving to Mexico, 24 Hour News 8 asked if anyone should be surprised that suppliers might follow. “No, it’s not a surprise. You follow your customers,” says Ray De Winkle, from The Right Place Inc.
Economic development companies say Greenville is a textbook case of what happens when a big company leaves town. “There is a whole supplier corp built up around that which they’re looking to replicate in Mexico,” De Winkle told 24 Hour News 8.
So is there any hope for the 500 supplier jobs? City officials say they’re working to attract companies to town to use the products made by the suppliers.
“It will be a question of timing, whether we can get them to commit to the point where they’re comfortable in staying or expanding here, and also accommodating Electrolux,” said Greenville City Manager George Bosanic.
The average wage of those suppliers is about $29,500 a year. So, it’s obvious how any job loss from suppliers would add to the ripple effect in Greenville.
From Wood TV