SCHENECTADY — Up to 200 white-collar workers at General Electric in Schenectady will be laid off by the end of this year, GE officials said Tuesday.
The company is reducing its entire Power & Water Division by 2 percent, spokeswoman Chris Horne said. It must be done to keep the company competitive, she added.
“In order to retain our competitiveness in this challenging, dynamic industry, we’re looking at ways to reduce cost across the global Power & Water business,” she said.
But it appears the cut in Schenectady will be much larger than 2 percent, which would be about 80 people. Horne said Schenectady would lose less than 200 employees.
The company moved the headquarters of Power & Water to Schenectady last year and reported then that it cut “a layer” of management to become more efficient.
Horne stressed that GE is not cutting its hourly manufacturing employees, who work on wages to build steam turbines, generators and batteries.
“Our manufacturing operations have been continually growing since 2011,” she said. “The actions we’re talking about here do not impact hourly production staff.”
Last week, GE announced its intent to close its Fort Edward manufacturing plant, but not the one in Schenectady, and move operations to Florida because Fort Edward wasn’t competitive.
When Horne made that announcement, she noted that GE had increased hiring throughout the Capital Region, including at Schenectady’s plant.
She defended that statement Tuesday, saying she had been referring to manufacturing jobs.
Schenectady GE workers have been receiving layoff notices all week as the company slowly notifies those who will be cut. Not everyone has been told yet.
Horne said GE will try to find those employees jobs elsewhere at the company. The layoffs will take place between now and the end of the year, she said, and GE will offer severance and employment assistance.
The move surprised Metroplex Development Authority Chairman Ray Gillen. He knew about the Fort Edward closing before it was announced to the public, but he hadn’t been told about the layoffs in Schenectady.
He noted that the company recently beat out Siemens, a competitor for steam turbines and generators, for a major contract with Algeria, and Siemens announced job cuts soon after.
Gillen said GE likely had to make cuts as well simply to keep prices low enough to win contracts. “The interesting thing is manufacturing is not being touched,” he said.
Where is the Metroplex press release taking credit?
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
You are a mindless boor that is hell-bent on making all kinds of stupid and nasty remarks without any shred of actual evidence to back it up. Either start to make an attempt to have civil, reasonable adult discussions or slither back under your rock.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
I can't believe that you don't understand that creating jobs and economic activity is a GOOD THING for the area. So I guess that you and your whining nayboob pals really don't want progress or improvement.
OK, NOW explain it DV!!!! YOUR DEMS choose to STEAL more money from the financially struggling homers by giving out a 100% tax exemption to GE - and YOU claim all this wild uncontrolled spending of the taxpayers' money is good for for the city.
Now tell us how good it is????
TOTAL TOTAL SILENCE Cowards will not comment
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
So, are we still going ahead with the 'high-end' high rise apartments that "Schenectady needs" to attract "skilled" workers to live here? If we'd had more suitable "housing stock", could we have prevented these layoffs? If not, why are we going ahead with these idiotic projects?
"The move surprised Metroplex Development Authority Chairman Ray Gillen. He knew about the Fort Edward closing before it was announced to the public, but he hadn’t been told about the layoffs in Schenectady."
Logged
