From the Las Vegas Sun:
Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas, the company’s contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce.
Flextronics Industrial, the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200 of its 300-plus employees Tuesday.
Amonix’s director of manufacturing operations, Eric Culberson, said the layoffs are part of “retooling” the factory as the company prepares to roll out its next-generation product.
“The new 8700 utility-scale CPV solar power system is a higher efficiency and lower cost,” Culberson said. “Once it is ready, we will ramp back up to meet the demands of the industry.”
Culberson said the job cuts are temporary and expects to begin hiring more people in the second half of the year to meet demand.
The company scaled down at all levels of employment at the plant — which was hiring as recently as three months ago — from entry level assemblers, process engineers, production supervisors and quality-control techs, according to one employee who was laid off.
Culberson said layoffs were made across the board.
Theodore Lewis, another employee, was working at the plant for six months before he and dozens of other employees were called into a mandatory meeting Tuesday.
“There was no excuse,” said Lewis, 34, who was never told his job was temporary. “They just said our job was done.”
Lewis said employees were confused and disappointed when they heard the news and were directed by human resources to look for other local jobs in retail.
Temporary. Yeah, yeah . . . that’s the ticket.
Amonix received a $5.9 million investment tax credit through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act in 2010, and another $12 million in private capital helped finance the plant.
It’s been a rough go for Amonix over the past few months, since their CEO was killed in a plane crash just before Christmas.
- Excited
- Angry
- Not as Angry
- Bored
- Indifferent
- Sad
Thanks to the stimulus money they received to ‘create jobs’ they were able to retool and make their plant so efficient that they can now layoff 2/3 of their workers.
Finally: a Green Energy success story!
Looks like people that work at green jobs would realize that all of their jobs are on the chopping blocks. These companies are failing left and right!
It’s political brawndo—the taxpayer fund mutilator!
A bunch of fun videos to watch at youtube channel ‘amonix solar’
Watch the video of Harry Reid taking credit for Amonix. (WE)
Watch as Amonix videos discuss that they are leaders in efficiency over and over.
What does that mean? More output per square foot? Is that relevant in a deployment like Alamosa, where land is cheap?
Here’s my measure of efficiency: efficiency is the process of converting the least capital into the most kwhs of electrical power production.
Let’s compare the cost of the last Amonix install at Alamosa, how does it stack up against Costco’s offering of a complete package, 3680 watt system with grid tie inverter, panels, mounting hardware, wiring and more for $2.9 a watt. Hey! I bet Costco will give you a big discount if you order 100 or 1000 times as much
Perhaps Harry Reid’s idea of efficiency has to do with the conversion of the public treasury dollars into political capital?