Key Tronic Lays Off Eleven

Key Tronic Corp. has laid off 11 people as it continues to shift its high-volume production activities to its plant in Juarez, Mexico.

“About half of those layoffs were due to production shifts, and about half is just that we have a lower load here right now,” said Fred Wenninger, Key Tronic’s president and chief executive officer.

Wenninger said periodic layoffs of small numbers of people will continue through the year as the ongoing process of production shifts to Juarez continues.

Key Tronic acquired its Juarez production facility several years ago. Company officials and industry analysts credit the company’s acquisition of a low-cost foreign production facility as a key factor in Key Tronic’s survival and continued competitiveness in a global market.

The company employs about 850 people in Spokane. It laid off 60 employees in January, and 47 in February, but most of those layoffs were related to slowdowns in the worldwide computer industry.

Key Tronic is a manufacturer of keyboards and other computer input devices.

, DataTimes