Western Digital to Close Camarillo Unit

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

Officials with the company said the shutdown is not a belt-tightening move but was ordered because the Camarillo location is outdated.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 closure will result in a charge of $1.5 million to $2.5 million in severance pay and closure costs for the fiscal 1987 third quarter ending March 18, the company said.

But those costs are not expected to result in a new loss for the quarter, said Marinaro, who added that “production efficiencies” from shifting operations to other locations should offset the entire charge over the next six months.

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.

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 that they will accept jobs. About 1,200 of the company’s 2,859 employees work in Irvine, a 2 1/2-hour drive from Camarillo. An additional 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 of the closing came one day after the company announced a $7.3-million order from Armstrad, a major English manufacturer of personal computers.

Investors on Thursday seemed to ignore news of the closing as Digital’s stock climbed during the day to a 12-month high of $23.875 per share before closing at $22.125 per share, down 63 cents for the day.