CHICAGO -- Continuing a trend among large companies of cutting employment even in times of prosperity, the Whirlpool Corp. said yesterday that it would close two North American factories and reduce its worldwide work force by 3,200, more than 7 percent.
The cutbacks will result in a one-time charge of $240 million against earnings in the current quarter, but are expected eventually to save $150 million in annual operating expenses. Whirlpool, based in Benton Harbor, Mich., has earned $249 million on sales of $6 billion in the first nine months of the year.
"We have to do what is right for the company's future," said David R. Whitwam, chairman and chief executive. He said the majority of the cutbacks would take place next year.
Wall Street embraced the moves, sending Whirlpool's shares up $1.25, to $53, on the New York Stock Exchange.
The factories to be closed are a plastics components plant in Columbia, S.C., that employs 500 workers and a plant in Cambridge, Ontario, where 400 workers make dryers and trash compactors, mostly for export to the United States. The components business will be shifted to outside suppliers and the Canadian operations will be moved to other Whirlpool plants.
An additional 300 white-collar employees will leave management and staff ranks at the eight remaining plants in North America, but the company expects those reductions to come almost entirely through attrition.
The brunt of the work force reductions will come in Europe, where Whirlpool will eliminate 2,000 jobs.
