Many of the jobs coming to Newell Rubbermaid Inc.’s plant in Mogadore are a result of the planned closing of the company’s facility in Greenville, Texas.
The maker of Rubbermaid storage containers, Sharpie pens and other consumer products said earlier in the week that it will add nearly 140 full-time production jobs and invest more than $25 million at its plant in Mogadore.
Newell Rubbermaid spokesman David Doolittle said the company will offer full-time jobs to some of its temporary workers in addition to advertising for various positions.
The Mogadore plant — an injection molding facility where food storage containers and other products are made — now employs about 700.
The average hourly pay for production workers is $13 to $15 an hour plus benefits, which are valued at about $6 an hour.
Also this week, the state granted a $3 million Job Retention Tax Credit to Newell Rubbermaid to retain the existing jobs in Mogadore. The company must keep operations in Mogadore for at least 18 years to keep the tax credit, which is applied against the state’s Commercial Activity Tax. The credit will be paid over 15 years.
Another Newell Rubbermaid plant, located in Winfield, Kan., will see production moved from Greenville, Texas.
Newell Rubbermaid, headquartered in Atlanta, said in early December that it planned to close the 490-employee Texas plant, as part of plans to reorganize its U.S. manufacturing facilities to “more closely match capacity with consumer demand.”
At that time, the company said production at the 30-year-old Texas facility would be moved, but did not say where.
Meanwhile, Newell Rubbermaid’s fourth-quarter earnings on a per-share basis beat Wall Street expectations. Earnings were up 6.2 percent to $80.4 million, or 27 cents per share, from $75.7 million, or 25 cents per share, for the same quarter a year ago.
Sales for the quarter increased 3.7 percent to $1.5 billion from the year-earlier quarter.
Newell Rubbermaid is continuing with plans — announced in November — to close its distribution center in Wooster by the end of this year.
The company wants to move distribution closer to the Mogadore plant; it has not discussed details about a site selection process for a new distribution center, except to confirm that it is considering a Tallmadge-Brimfield Township joint economic development district in Brimfield.
The closing in Wooster will leave only a Newell Rubbermaid retail store in the Wayne County city where Rubbermaid began in 1920.
