ARKADELPHIA, Ark. — According to Arkansas Business, Danfoss Commercial Compressors announced Tuesday that it will close its Arkadelphia plant by the end of the year. The closure will affect 170 people.
Danfoss is a company that makes compressors for air-conditioning units and commercial freezers. The company cites a declining demand for its products.
According to the company's North America public relations director Lisa Tryson, new technology was shifting demand to lower-cost products and the facility could not achieve the scale it needed to be successful.
Danfoss will be working with the Arkadelphia Regional Economic Development Alliance and the local chamber of commerce to help the employees find work at other Danfoss facilities or elsewhere.
Employees will also be offered a severance and retention packages for staying on while the plant closes in phases.
President and CEO of the alliance and chamber Stephen Bell said his organization and the company will be working with the Governor's Dislocated Worker Task Force to retrain and find jobs for employees.
The Danfoss plant had endured previous layoffs, including one that shed 45 workers in 2012 and another that cut 100 people in 2011, but it added around 70 workers in 2014 and 2015, and benefited from incentives provided by the Economic Development Corporation of Clark County when it moved a production line from Mexico to Arkadelphia.
Danfoss, which origitated in Nordborg, Denmark, purchased the Arkadelphia factory in 2006.
There are about 28,000 employees in more than 50 Danfoss factories throughout the world.