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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Kimberly-Clark Corp. has announced it plans to transfer hundreds of jobs from its plants at Draper, Utah, and Pocatello, Idaho, to a facility in Mexico.
Kimberly-Clark said the cost-cutting move will be accomplished through attrition over at least three years with no planned layoffs.
The company said Monday that it will transfer 150 to 200 jobs from its plant in the Salt Lake City suburb of Draper that makes disposable medical devices to a facility in Magdalena, Mexico.
The Dallas-based company also will transfer about 150 jobs from a plant in Pocatello to the same Magdalena plant.
"We made this decision to minimize the impact on the communities in which we do business and minimize the financial impact on our employees," said Marty Rockwell, director of operations at the Draper plant. "We looked at our attrition numbers over the past two years, and we think we can actually achieve this through attrition."
The Utah jobs being transferred pay approximately $11 per hour plus benefits.
The Draper operation, which Kimberly Clark acquired as part of its 1999 acquisition of Utah's Ballard Medical Products, will remain open and employ about 600 people after the transfer is complete, Rockwell said. The Pocatello plant also will remain open and employ about 275 people.
Those remaining in Draper will work in administration, research and development, sales, distribution, logistics and engineering, he said. Some manufacturing work will remain in both Draper and Pocatello.
"The labor-intensive processes at both sites will be shifted to Mexico," Rockwell said. "We're keeping the complex, high-tech processes in Pocatello and Draper."
The transfer will begin in the last three months of the year, he said. Kimberly Clark's diaper manufacturing plant in Ogden is unaffected by the announcement, Rockwell said.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
