Unisys Corp has announced the closure of its 1100 mainframe plant in Roseville, Minnesota. The move will cost the jobs of nearly 600 employees. About 350 workers who assemble printed circuit boards for mainframes will lose their jobs in six to 12 months. Their work will be contracted out to other companies. Another 240 who build the mainframes and provide support services will also be fired over the coming year as Unisys consolidates production of its large proprietary computers at its Rancho Bernardo, California computer assembly plant, which it picked up from the Burroughs side of the house. That plant will do all the work that is now done in Roseville and Santa Margarita, California, but will employ only about 250 people, compared with the 1,150 California and Minnesota workers Unisys now uses to manufacture its mid- and large-scale mainframes.
