On Thursday, the Hershey Company announced they are building a new plant in Mexico and will be closing some US based plants and laying off about 1500 workers. On Friday that changed to possibly 3000 workers.

There has been no formal declaration that any of these will be here locally, but since the "original" plant on East Chocolate Avenue is very old, and the workers are unionized, the local speculation is that many of the layoffs will happen here. Hershey also operates two other plant in town, the Reese's plant on Rte 422 west of downtown and the so called "west" plant which is about a mile west of Reese's.

This area has not had a large scale employment cutback for many years, probably since Bethlehem Steel shuttered their plants in Lebanon and Steelton quite a few years ago. The area economy is mostly driven by government (both state and federal) and distribution (many firms have their northeast distribution centers here due to proximity to interstate highway access).

The manuvering to keep the original plant open will be interesting. The Hershey Trust (which controls the majority of Hershey stock) has a large stake in the local community so I'm sure they will have some input with the company.