SCHOPFHEIM, SWITZERLAND -- Würth Elektronik has closed its PCB production site in here, first announced in October.  

Würth will move producion from Schopfheim to its three sites in Germany.

“The management and works council have now reached an agreement on a reconciliation of interests and a social plan, which was presented to the affected employees at a works meeting on February 6,” according to the company. “After the closure was announced, companies from the region and neighboring Switzerland contacted us with job offers for the employees in Schopfheim. Würth Elektronik used the contact for an internal job exchange. To date, almost all trainees and around 50 employees have been placed.”

“The production sites in Niedernhall and Rot-am-See will focus on industries and applications whose more complex and individual printed circuit boards are manufactured in Europe for strategic reasons,” said Wurth, which attrubutes the need to close Schopfheim to “the current worst crisis in the history of the PCB industry in Europe, with a dramatic slump in incoming orders”.

Würth was founded in 1971 and has 1,000 employees, 4,000 customers and annual sales in the “three-digit million range.”