SOUTH KINGSTOWN – APC by Schneider Electric plans to eliminate about 75 jobs at its manufacturing facilities in Rhode Island and transfer another 25, a company spokesperson confirmed today. The local cuts amount to about 3 percent of the company’s North American work force.

“On March 6, we began notifying employees of their prospective end dates,” Sarah E. Dereniuk, APC’s communication specialist, told Providence Business News in a telephone interview. Affected will be manufacturing and facilities workers at the company’s headquarters and manufacturing operation, on Fairgrounds Road in West Kingston, and its manufacturing plant at 1600 Division Road in West Warwick.

“We are closing down our West Warwick facility,” Dereniuk explained. “It’s a decision aligned with our decision [last year] to consolidate our facilities.”

The bulk of the manufacturing now accomplished at the West Warwick plant will be shifted to Middletown, Pa., she said, while non-manufacturing workers in West Warwick will be transferred to West Kingston.

APC is a maker of the battery back-up systems known as uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), as well as other products to support home, office and data-center computer installations.

Most but not all of the local job cuts will come at the plant that is closing, the company spokeswoman said. She declined to specify how many jobs would be pared at each site, but did say the layoffs and transfers all will take effect “by July.”

“All affected employees will receive a severance package, outplacement assistance and support in their transition,” Dereniuk said, adding that “APC has been and will continue to work with R.I. Department of Labor and Training to support those employees in their transition.”

The pending layoffs follow Schneider Electric’s announcement last May – 16 months after it acquired the former American Power Conversion – that it was investing $3 million to $4 million in renovating APC’s South Kingstown facility. The aim was to “make this place more effective” by enhancing working conditions for employees and making the building more energy efficient, APC-MGE President and CEO Laurent Vernerey told state and local officials during an “Invest in America Week” reception at the plant. (READ MORE)

At the time, Schneider said APC had 1,100 local workers. Company officials today declined to reveal its current local staffing level. But Dereniuk said APC now has “approximately 12,000 employees worldwide.” And on its Web sites and in recent news releases, its Paris-based parent company lists 114,000 employees in 100 nations, while the Critical Power & Cooling Services Business Unit of which APC is a part lists 12,000 employees worldwide.

The new layoffs also follow the elimination last year of 50 to 100 jobs across the continent, which left APC with about 2,500 employees in North America. (READ MORE)

Unlike the new round of layoffs, those cuts were “across all functions of the business,” Elizabeth deCastro, the company’s media relations manager, told PBN at the time. “Market volatility, a global retraction in the economy, and the economic uncertainty that lies ahead have all contributed to the decision to reduce our work force in North America,” deCastro added in a December statement.

APC by Schneider Electric – founded in Rhode Island in 1981 as, American Power Conversion – is a member with MGE UPS Systems of the $3.5 billion Critical Power and Cooling System business unit of Rueil-Malmaison, France-based Schneider Electric (Paris: SU.PA). For more information, go to www.apc-mge.com or www.apc.com.