SolarWorld USA will close its Camarillo administrative facility next month, a move that will eliminate 59 employees. The U.S. subsidiary of SolarWorld AG, based in Bonn, Germany, has gradually shrunk its Ventura County presence since opening a solar panel manufacturing plant in Oregon in 2009. At one time, the company had a six-building campus in Camarillo and employed more than 300 workers. Positions to be eliminated include heads of marketing and sales, customer service representatives, product marketing specialists and project managers, according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filed with the state Employee Development Department. The office will close in November, and positions will be phased out before then. Attempts to reach a representative of SolarWorld were not successful. In September 2011, SolarWorld shut down its solar panel manufacturing operations in Camarillo and eliminated about 180 positions. Just over a year later, another 23 sales, marketing and human resources positions were cut. SolarWorld USA purchased the Camarillo factory in 2006. Solar panel development and manufacturing has taken place there since the 1970s under previous owners, including Shell, the Dutch oil and energy company, and Siemens AG, a German engineering and electronics multinational.
