Procter & Gamble announced last week that its subsidiary, Boston-based Gillette Corp., will close its Devens packaging operations, resulting in the loss of about 350 full-time jobs. Sonoco, the company that manages all Devens packaging operations for Gillette, also employs as many as 800 temporary workers at the Devens facility. Roger Schrum, a corporate communications representative for Sonoco, headquartered in Hartsville, S.C., said that Sonoco’s operation handles packaging and warehousing for all Gillette razors and blades packaged for North America.
“Sonoco has about 400 full-time employees at Devens,” Schrum said, including a number of supervisors, planners, and managers. Some of these positions will be transferred to Gillette’s Andover facility, which Gillette plans to expand. Gillette plans to move its packaging operations to Mexico by the end of 2010, he said.
Schrum said Sonoco will “continue to manage the Devens operations through the end of 2010,” and wants to maintain employees there until that time. He said the company will provide retention incentives and, if employees stay through the end of operations, will also provide them with severance and outplacement support.
Gillette representatives were not available for comment at press time.
Meg Delorier, chief of staff for MassDevelopment, the quasi-public entity charged with redeveloping the former Army base and stimulating economic growth there, said that “Gillette made a business decision” to close its Devens facility.
“Gillette has been a great business partner with MassDevelopment, one of the first to come to Devens,” she said. “But their closing does not signal a trend. Just around the corner you see the construction at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Evergreen Solar, and all the infrastructure improvements that are being done on Barnum Road.”
Evergreen Solar, a manufacturer of state-of-the-art solar panels, is developing a 450,000-square-foot facility at Devens. Chris Lawson, an Evergreen representative, said that the company will hire about 800 employees in Massachusetts by the end of the first quarter of 2009, tripling its Massachusetts work force.
