Stealthy Holiday Layoffs at Endicott Interconnect Technologies

Dozens of Endicott Interconnect Technologies workers have been laid off over the last few days in the latest round of downsizing by the decade-old company.

Current and former employees have estimated about sixty people lost their jobs last Friday, less than a week before Thanksgiving.

Those layoffs came a month after another sixty workers were laid off at the company, which occupies the site where IBM operated its massive Endicott manufacturing plant for decades.

EIT director of human resources Annamaria Mastronardi has not returned telephone messages left by WNBF News in recent weeks.

Endicott Interconnect Technologies was created just over ten years ago. The company was formed from the microelectronics unit jettisoned by IBM.

EIT reportedly went into operation with 2,000 employees on November 1, 2002. Two weeks after that, 200 people -- ten percent of its workforce -- were laid off.

In past years, EIT representatives occasionally have discussed layoffs and the changing business conditions that prompted them. But the company no longer provides information about the number of people it employs nor will officials talk about the future of EIT.

Some workers who've recently lost their jobs have said they've been led to believe 100 or more employees are expected to be laid off by the end of next month.

With no comment from EIT officials, it's not possible to corroborate those predictions.