Whirlpool Beefs Up South Of The Border

Whirlpool, the world’s largest manufacturer of white goods, announced Tuesday that it is planning to expand production in Mexico as part of a larger, reorganization of global production. The plan comprises increasing output of side-by-side refrigeration products at its Ramos Arizpe refrigeration manufacturing facility from next year. Once that expansion is complete, around 700 employees north of the border in Arkansas will be made redundant in the first half of 2008 as additional models currently manufactured in the US will move to the Mexican plant. The lay-offs follow the voluntary redundancies at the Arkansas plant of more than 900 employees after the production of other models was transferred to Ramos Arizpe.