Britania Appliances, owner of the Philco brand, fired 800 workers from the Manaus factory (AM), where microwave ovens, televisions and air conditioners are produced.
The company confirmed the cuts and said, by note, that, due to the drop in sales during the seasonal period, it did not reach the growth projected for these items in 2025. “Given this scenario, it was necessary to make an adjustment in the staff,” he wrote in a statement.
According to the president of the Amazonas State Metalworkers Union and president of the Single Central of Workers of Amazonas, Valdemir Santana, the 800 layoffs correspond to about 30% of workers employed at the company’s Manaus Unit (AM).
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The reason for the mass cut cited by the company to the union was the drop in sales of televisions and microwave ovens, specifically.
“It was a kind of atypical case,” said Santana. He considered that competing companies in the production of TVs and microwave ovens did not make mass layoffs like Philco, only punctual adjustments. “It has TV inventory, and the product is not selling as it sold before, but there was no resignation like that.”
According to Eletros, an association that brings together the electronics industry, television sales presented, from January to May 2025, a discreet increase of 0.3% over the same interval of 2024.
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The expectation for the end of the first half is a growth of 1% compared to the previous year, maintaining the constancy of the segment.
Philco is among the ten largest employing industries of the Manaus Polo (AM). The company also said, in a statement, that the last resignation of a large number of workers occurred in the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, when there was a drop in sales in seasonal products.
Mass dismissal
Santana pointed out that the industrial hub is currently at the record level of employment, with 132,000 workers employed. Three years ago there had been no mass layoffs in the region industry, which faces a problem of lack of qualified labor. Given this scenario, the union leader believes it will not be difficult for these workers to replace themselves.
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The homologations of the layoffs began this Monday, 14, at the union headquarters. According to the company, the package negotiated for dismissed workers includes the continuity of health plans by the end of August, in addition to receiving three basic baskets per worker.
Those with more than two years of home will have the right of four basic baskets. In case the company reflects again, the union agreed that the dismissed will have priority in the admissions.
In addition to the Manaus unit, Britania Appliances, based in Curitiba (PR), has a factory and a distribution center in Joinville (SC). The company said in a statement that “the cuts will not involve other areas of the company.”
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For strategic reasons, the company said it does not disclose the exact number of workers per unit and added that “it is committed to valuing its teams and recent movements are part of a punctual restructuring process compatible with production in the region.”
