A company that thought it would be flying high through a partnership with Apple has now hit a new low. Mashable reported on Oct. 17 that GT Advanced Technologies will be letting go over 700 employees and already has declared bankruptcy.
The company was originally supposed to be providing the much-talked-about sapphire glass screens for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. But, as all things do with time, the plans changed. Apple no longer needed the glass for all of their phones, but only for the Apple Watch.
Now that the company won’t be going through as much production work, they will be letting go 727 jobs at the Mesa, Arizona plant. A notice from the company’s vice president of human resources noted that 25 administrative jobs, 70 management jobs, 108 technical jobs and 524 production positions would be affected. All employees will be “separated from employment” by Dec. 15. Between the company’s three factories in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Arizona, a total of 890 jobs are expected to be cut.
The company filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 6 and had originally stated that operations would continue as normal. Now, with the layoffs, the question remains as to why the company had to declare. Bloomberg notes that the reason will likely stay silent until the bankruptcy hearing , due to confidentiality agreements with Apple. Should those agreements be violated, the consequence is as much as $50 per violation.
The hearing on the bankruptcy filing, originally planned to take place today, was pushed back to Oct. 21. On that date, the U.S. Justice Department, investors and creditors will learn why, 10 months after filing a multi-year contract with Apple, the company needed to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
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