The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Aptar closing 2 state factories, laying off nearly 300 workers
An Illinois-based company that makes packaging for the drug and consumer product industries is closing its Connecticut facilities in Torrington and Stratford, laying off 290 people in the process.
The Aptar Group notified officials with the state Department of Labor this week that it will close the company’s facilities at 125 Access Road in Stratford and 301 Ella Grasso Ave. in
Torrington. The layoffs at both locations will begin Sept. 15, although the two facilities will have different closing dates, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification the company filed with state officials.
The Torrington facility, which has 59 employees, will close by the end of December, according to Aptar officials. The Stratford facility, which employs 231 people, will close by the end of March 2021.
Both factories made packaging for Aptar’s home and beauty segment.
Amy Flood, Aptar’s director of human resources, said in the notice to state officials that the two Connecticut facilities are closing as the company consolidates some of its manufacturing operations to other facilities in Illinois, New Jersey and Mexico. Company officials did not respond to calls from Hearst Connecticut Media seeking comment.
Torrington Mayor Elinor Carbone said representatives of the company contacted city officials several weeks ago to let them know that a large layoff or facility closing was likely. Carbone said the city’s economic development office “reached out to them to see if there was anything we could do to keep them here.”
“Once we found out that it
was a consolidation, we realized there was nothing that we could have done,” she said. “This is a loss not only to the city, but to the entire region, as well.”
Carbone said if the layoffs had come in January or February of this year “there were several-hundred unfilled jobs in the area that we could have referred them (the Aptar employees) to.”
“Now, none of those job are still available,” she said. “It’s just a god-awful situation.”
Stratford officials weren’t immediately available for comment on Aptar’s plans to close the plant there.
Aptar established a presence in Connecticut when it acquired Stratford-based Emson Research, a privatelyheld company, for $150 million in February 1999. Emson was known primarily for making pumps for companies in the fragrance and cosmetics market and had four Connecticut-based factories.
At one point, Aptar operated factories in Watertown and Norwalk in addition to the two it now is planning to close. And the company’s Stratford plant was profitable enough that it added 45,000 square feet to the existing 138,000-square-foot manufacturing facility there.
Aptar currently has 14,000 employees in 20 countries.