PPC Electronic AG company declared bankrupt

The PPC Electronic company has been declared bankrupt, which means that  95 employees will lose their jobs.
 
The news of the company's financial problems did not come as a surprise as it has been struggling for some time yet as recently as 2000 the manufacturer of printed board circuits employed as many as 500 people.
 
The redundancies will be of immediate effect, though Kurt Landis of the Zug Unemployment Insurance Fund Office said he was working on the amount of compensation the workers would receive. What makes the situation worse is that a lot of the company's staff are currently on holiday. However, an information day for those affected will be held on Monday 13 August and the RAV Employment Exchange Office will be providing individual advisory sessions for all those who have lost their job.
 
The CEO and chairman of the board of the PPC Electronic AG company, Giorgio Dognini, was deeply upset at the news. "After a long struggle we just had to accept that external factors were stronger than we were. It is particularly sad for our long-serving loyal staff; it will not be easy for them to find alternative employment as they worked in a highly specialised area."
 
Dognini, himself a co-owner of the company, explained that it was the strong Swiss franc in comparison with the euro and the dollar that had caused the problems. "It just sucked away at the company's lifeblood. We had been operating on extremely tight margins for some time and tried everything but even continual downsizing did not help," said Dognini.
 
The company is not the only manufacturer of printed circuit boards in the canton to have had difficulities; the Cicor AG company closed its plant in Unterägeri earlier this year. In fact it is estimated that four-fifths of the European and US printed circuit board manufacturers have closed down in recent years after coming under increasing price pressure from China. The PPC Electronic AG company had managed to hold out longer than most as it made specialised products for the medical and military industry. Indeed it was the only manufacturer in Europe in certain specialised fields. However, the company's competitors were not in China, but in Germany and Italy, where, as a result of the exchange rate, their products are 20% cheaper.
 
Speaking from the company's premises in Cham's Riedstrasse, Dognini added, "The irony is that we are closing down with full order books."
 
 


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