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Jan 29th
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Kodak closing city manufacturing plant

Kodak’s continuing bankruptcy proceedings have brought the hammer down at last on their Zapopan facility. The manufacturing plant, currently focused on producing disposable cameras, will close in November, cutting 350 employees.

That’s roughly half of the facility’s employees. The other half, mostly administrative personnel, will remain in the employ of the erstwhile film giant.

The Jalisco Department of Employment and Social Planning (STPS) has been in contact with Kodak since before the public announcement to step in and help these workers find employment at other technology companies in the metro area, although as of yet they have no definitive strategy and, in a strange contradiction, Jaime Eduardo Martinez Flores, secretary of Economic Promotion for Jalisco, was a little more tepid, telling Spanish-language daily Milenio that it will all depend on the market.

Three years ago, when Hitachi closed their Guadalajara plant, the STPS helped 80 percent of its employees find jobs elsewhere. Kodak’s employees have another six months to secure their next jobs. With Jalisco’s unemployment rate hovering just under five percent, that prospect shouldn’t be out of reach.

The move was not unexpected. Kodak has a lot of weight to shed in its Chapter 11 proceedings before it can climb out of a 1.7 billion dollar hole. Just this month they announced plans to cut health coverage for retirees once they reach Medicare eligibility at age 65. This move is expected to save the company almost 34 million dollars over the next two years alone.

Kodak will look for a buyer for the massive facility off Mariano Otero near Plaza del Sol. Speculators value the property at 180 to 250 million dollars.

The company plans to focus on digital technology patents, home printing, packaging and software in its second century of business as all traditional avenues of revenue fall to the proliferation of ever-newer technology.

Even with the disappearing home photography market, Kodak had until recently been able to rely on the film industry. The majority of this year’s best picture nominees were shot on Kodak film, but these expensive, high profile projects with industry veterans at the helm will soon be the exception, especially as younger filmmakers replace the old guard. Within the next decade, outside of niche nostalgia projects, almost everything will be shot, edited, delivered and projected digitally.

Most lower budget productions have already made the switch. In the three short years from 2008 to 2011, Kodak’s motion picture stock film division saw their revenues cut in half.
Nowhere was the digital sea change more prominent than last Sunday night in Hollywood. As part of their bankruptcy reshuffling, Kodak removed their sponsorship of the Academy Awards this year and their name from the theater built in 2002 expressly to house the event.

 

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