BENTON HARBOR, MICH. – Whirlpool will close its Evansville, Ind., manufacturing plant and cut 1,100 full-time jobs by mid-2010.
Mexico will be the new home of production of top-freezer refrigerators made at Evansville at one of Whirlpool’s existing manufacturing facilities there. Production of icemakers produced in Evansville will be relocated to a company-owned site yet to be determined.
Whirlpool also said that it is currently evaluating options for the best location for the Refrigeration Product Development Center, which is co-located with the Evansville manufacturing facility and has approximately 300 employees. A decision is expected in the near future.
Al Holaday, Whirlpool North American manufacturing operations VP, said in a prepared statement that the move was made to “reduce excess capacity and improve costs” in North America.
The announcement comes a little more than a month after Whirlpool reported a second-quarter net sales drop of 18 percent and with net earnings down 33 percent.
