Philips closing East Tennessee headquarters, costing 70 jobs

<p>Philips Consumer Electronics is closing its East Tennessee headquarters in Strawberry Plains and laying off 70 people as it continues restructuring.</p><p>The company announced last month that it would outsource its Knoxville-based service activities to IBM. That caused 70 of 150 employees in Philips' Knoxville and Greenville offices to be laid off, while 30 will become IBM employees who will continue to work out of Knoxville, said Philips spokeswoman Katrina Blauvelt.</p><p>The other 50 employees will continue to work for Philips' East Tennessee operations, providing oversight to the IBM services contract. Philips plans to leave both its Knoxville and Greeneville facilities within nine months.</p><p>"... Long-term we are looking at options (including) whether we're going to continue having a presence in East Tennessee," Blauvelt said.</p><p>Philips employees were told of the reductions Tuesday at a "town hall" meeting in Knoxville, then informed individually whether they would be part of the layoffs, Blauvelt said.</p><p>In January, Philips said it would move 130 jobs from Knox County to existing operations in Belgium to cut costs.</p><p>Belgium-based Philips' consumer electronics headquarters once resided in Knoxville, employing more than 600 people. In addition, the company operated a 3,000-employee television manufacturing plant in Greeneville.</p><p>In 1997 Philips sold the television business and moved its headquarters to Atlanta.</p><p>Strawberry Plains is located about 15 miles east of Knoxville.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x285955c)</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/5/168860