Semitool plans three-week shutdown

Semitool Inc. workers learned Tuesday that the company will effectively shut down for three weeks and be cut back to a skeleton production crew.

The company-wide shutdown tentatively will go from Dec. 15 to Jan. 5, although dates for the reduced hours are a moving target, Human Resources Manager Vicki Billmayer said.

"Customer orders will be the bottom line," Billmayer said. "We're looking at it every day."

Lagging customer orders prompted the Kalispell company's cost-cutting measure.

"During this continuing economic crisis many companies across the nation are using this holiday time to reduce production hours," the company announced in a prepared statement Tuesday morning.

"Many of Semitool's customers have traditionally closed their factories during the Christmas holidays. This year Semitool will be maintaining a skeleton crew over the next three weeks to continue to fill year-end customer orders but use this holiday time for reducing hours."

Assemblers and security personnel will be among workers on the skeleton crew.

All non-revenue-related operations will be shut down.

Billmayer said this is not the first time the company has reduced operations over the holidays.

Tuesday's announcement comes just one month after Semitool announced layoffs of 100 workers in its Kalispell and Libby production plants.

The Nov. 10 layoffs left 700 people in the company's Montana work force. They were part of a plan to cut about 170 from its 1,300-person work force worldwide.

For more on this story, read Wednesday's Daily Inter Lake.