70 more jobs to go at Esec

Esec, the Cham-based subsidiary of the OC Oerlikon technology firm, has been sold for an unspecified sum to the Dutch SB Semiconductor Industries NV company. This comes on the back of restructuring measures which will see 150 jobs being lost, 70 of them in Cham. Another 70 employees are also having to continue at reduced working hours.

 

What the sale of the factory in Cham will mean in the future is as yet unclear. "We would still like to hope that it will mean a strengthening of Esec in Cham," said Bernhard Neidhart, head of the Economy and Employment office in Zug.

The new owners however are coming off two very poor years in financial terms. In 2007, the company slipped into the red and was forced into a restructuring programme that is just beginning to bear fruit. This however means that they are planning to get rid of another 200 jobs in the first half of 2009, from a global total of 1,300 employees.