HARRISBURG -- Sony Corp. said Tuesday it will close its flat-screen TV production plant in Westmoreland County over the next 16 months as part of a global downsizing.
The company told employees it would discontinue operations beginning with television manufacturing by the end of February. Fewer than one-third of employees likely will be working at the plant in six months, spokesman Michael Koff said.
Gov. Ed Rendell said the plant is a casualty of the worldwide recession and innovations in making flat-panel televisions lighter. The lighter televisions can be shipped more easily from overseas, making a U.S. production facility unnecessary, he said.
Rendell said he learned of the closing Monday. He met with Sony officials at the governor's mansion in the morning, as the Japanese electronics maker announced from Tokyo that it would slash 8,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its global work force.
"We probed very deeply what the reasons were behind it, to see if there's anything we could do as a state," Rendell said.
The sprawling plant in East Huntingdon and Hempfield, which opened in 1992, employs 560 people. Rendell said the state would offer those employees retraining and job placement services.
State officials are working to court two other companies to move into the site, he said. Rendell said one company might be committed to moving into the plant and a second is interested, but he wouldn't name the firms.
"One is a renewable energy company, which is the wave of the future," Rendell said.
Sony is aiming to cut costs by $1.1 billion a year because of the economic downturn. The corporation has 185,000 employees worldwide and said in an announcement that it will complete job cuts -- all in the electronics sector -- by the end of March 2010.
Sony received $40 million in public incentives when it announced plans to open its plant near New Stanton in an old Volkswagen of America production facility.
Initially, the plant produced large rear-projection TVs, but in recent years has focused primarily on manufacturing flat-panel LCD screens, repairs and logistics. It has been Sony's East Coast TV distribution center.
Sony leases the plant from the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority. The company intends to honor the lease, which expires in 2010, Rendell said.
In recent months, the Economic Growth Connection of Westmoreland, a Greensburg-based group, has tried to help Sony reduce overhead at the plant by marketing sections of it and restructuring loans, said John Skiavo, the group's president.
"Locally, they have worked very hard to reduce their costs," Skiavo said.
The plant was Sony's only Northeast-based facility, Skiavo said, noting that Sony suppliers also are based in Western Pennsylvania.
"So, there will be an impact," Skiavo said about the pending closure. Sony plans to cut investment in electronics and outsource some work. The company said the job cuts will vary by country.
Sony's electronics business employs about 160,000 workers. The company also has movie, video game and financial businesses.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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