U.S. will close Northeast Philly check plant, idling 190
UPDATE: The U.S. Treasury plans to close its Treasury Financial Management Service check processing center in Northeast Philadelphia by the end of the year, Treasury employees confirmed to me this morning. The center, which employs 190, is one of three in the US that prints Social Security checks and other goverment payments. The three big laser printers at 13000 Townsend Rd. in Northeast Philly can produce 180,000 checks an hour.
EARLIER: A Treasury Department computer facility in Philadelphia is among hundreds of redundant locations the U.S. Government plans to close by the end of 2011 as it consolidates data services and moves more applications from physical servers into the worldwide computing "cloud." (More on closings from NY Times here.)
The office slated to close is operated by Treasury's Fiscal Management Service, said spokesman Matt Anderson. Officials couldn't immediately say how many workers here are losing their jobs and how many will be offered work elsewhere (say, at the big new IRS center at the former 30th Street Post Office, which replaces the old IRS complex in Northeast Philly.)
Separately, Lockheed Martin, which last we checked employed around 10,000 at its military and aerospace centers in Newtown Bucks County, King of Prussia, South Jersey and other Philadelphia-area sites, says it's urging 6,500 management and business enterprise employees to consider "voluntary layoffs." The move follows 1,500 job cuts in LM Aeronautics and 1,200 job cuts in LM Space Systems last month as the US cuts growth in military spending. Lockheed spokeswoman Jennifer Whitlow declined comment on how the cuts have affected LM's Philly-area payroll.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/US-Lockheed-plan-more-Philly-area-cuts.html