The Middlebury, Conn., firm was the last major domestic watchmaker of the once-thriving U.S. watch industry doing any manufacturing here at all. Other major companies in the past half-century have closed, were bought out or moved abroad (mainly to southeast Asia) years ago. (A handful still does some assembly in the U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico.) Timex itself set up assembly operations in Philippines a number of years ago. Until last year, Timex’s Little Rock factory, the last U.S. plant to make parts for a widely-sold watch brand, made cases and watch parts for 22 million watches, about 80% of Timex’s annual production.
It shipped them to Timex’s watch assembly facilities in the Philippines. businesses in the 1950s, ’60s and early `70s, on the slogan “Takes a Licking, and Keeps on Ticking,” The closing, affecting the plant’s 85 remaining workers, is for cost and competitive reasons, say officials of Timex, which built its U.S. “It’s all about efficiencies,” says Jim Katz, public relations manager for Timex. They are already doing the bulk of the work.” “We have a large watchmaking facility in the Philippines which can take over these tasks and do them more efficiently. Last August, Timex announced it would stop making die-cast watch cases in Little Rock within a year, and buy materials from vendors to make die-cast watch cases in the Philippines. Late last year, Timex also closed its Shelton, Conn., distribution center and moved those operations to North Little Rock, where its watch repair center is located. That distribution and watch repair center (with 175 people) will continue operating.
Timex opened its first plant in Little Rock in 1945.
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