Less than a month after wind turbine manufacturer Vestas announced it was consolidating its U.S. research and development (R&D) offices and transferring those operations and employees to its Brighton, Colo., office, the company says it will shutter all of its U.S. R&D operations, resulting in 85 layoffs.
Vestas will close its R&D facilities in Houston; Louisville, Colo.; and Marlborough, Mass., by the end of the second quarter of 2013. Instead of being moved to Brighton, as originally announced, 85 Vestas R&D employees will be terminated.
The company also closed R&D locations this year in China, Denmark and Singapore, and reduced its R&D employee base by about 20% compared with 2011.
Last month, Vestas announced two rounds of layoffs in Colorado, and in August, the company eliminated positions from its Brighton, Colo., assembly plant as part of its plan to reduce its head count by 3,700 this year.
Vestas says it will continue its R&D presence in six other locations around the world.
Like so many other companies in the wind energy supply chain that have recently trimmed their headcounts, Vestas has repeatedly cited reduced orders resulting from the lack of a production tax credit extension as the reason for the layoffs it has made.
