Meyer Burger axes 105 jobs at US plant

Oct 28, 2014 - Swiss solar machinery maker Meyer Burger Technology AG (SWF:MBTN) will lay off 105 workers at its factory in Colorado with immediate effect, after its client GT Advanced Technologies Inc filed for voluntary bankruptcy protection.

In a press release on Friday, the Swiss firm said it will continue to provide jobs to about 200 people at the Colorado Springs plant. Meyer Burger explained that the personnel and production capacities of the US facility were increased in the past 12 months for a certain project with GT Advanced in the field of slicing sapphire with industrial diamond wire saws and diamond wire materials.

GT Advanced, which supplies Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) with sapphire glass for its iPhones, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the start of October. Those legal proceedings are still ongoing and are likely to last several months, Meyer Burger said, adding that the US firm will not be able to proceed with the project as planned.

The troubled US company is also engaged in the production of polysilicon processing equipment and photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing machinery. Polysilicon is a crucial raw material for most PVs.

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