news-record.com

WINSTON-SALEM (MCT) — R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said today that it plans to reduce its manufacturing work force by an undisclosed number as part of a continuing effort to lower expenses.

The company said it was informing about 1,800 production employees at its Tobaccoville and Whitaker Park plants about the opportunity to leave with a severance package.

The company said job reductions will be voluntary and not at this point mandatory. No other Reynolds employees will be affected. The company has no specific job reduction goals.

Analysts said it's not surprising that Reynolds is reducing its manufacturing work force given lower demand for cigarettes nationwide.

Reynolds said in November that its cigarette-shipment volume fell 11 percent in the third quarter to 20.6 billion cigarettes. Reynolds said that the industry decline was 12.6 percent.

The job reduction would be Reynolds' first since announcing it was cutting 570 white-collar jobs in September 2008. The company is scheduled to complete the last of those job cuts in early 2010.

Reynolds spokeswoman Jan Smith said that the last time manufacturing workers had an opportunity to leave with severance was September 2003, when 800 manufacturing jobs were cut as part of eliminating about 1,600 jobs locally and 2,600 companywide.

Before the September 2003 restructuring, Reynolds had 2,000 workers at the Tobaccoville plant and 500 at the Whitaker Park plant.

It now has 1,200 in Tobaccoville and 600 in Whitaker Park. Some of those jobs related to the manufacturing expansion following the purchase and integration of Brown & Williamson Corp. in July 2004

Although manufacturing workers were not the target of the September 2008 job reduction, Smith said the production work force has been reduced by about 100 since September 2008 through attrition.

Officials did not say whether the severance package would be more elaborate than those typically provided by the company.

When Reynolds announced the September 2008 job cuts, it offered a severance package of at least 13 weeks of pay, benefits and outplacement assistance.