LEBANON — The market in China has been very good in recent years for industrial printhead manufacturer Fujifilm Dimatix as the country’s building boom has increased demand for ceramic tiles used in construction.
But now that China’s building boom has slowed, so has its need for ceramic tiles, and the reverberations are being felt at Fujifilm’s manufacturing plant half a world away in the Upper Valley.
The Japanese-owned manufacturer of industrial printing heads that stamp designs on a variety of materials and surfaces — including ceramic tiles — laid off 19 employees at its Etna Road manufacturing plant earlier this month, a company executive confirmed on Monday.
The layoffs happened against a backdrop of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, which has resulted in two economic superpowers imposing ever-higher rounds of tariffs on imports and exports in the two countries.
Although tariffs “are not helping” with Fujifilm’s trade in China, said Jeff Horten, vice president of operations, the principal economic factor that led to the Sept. 4 layoffs — which account for about 5% of Fujifilm’s approximately 400 employees in Lebanon — is the slowdown in building construction in China, he said.
Industrial print heads manufactured for the construction-fueled tile market represent Fujifilm’s No. 1 business segment and account for 35% of sales, with China as the largest customer.
“In this particular case, a very significant tightening in ceramic tile printing has been the contributing effect,” Horten said about the layoffs. “All the foundries around the world are no longer running around the clock.”
Ceramic tiles are ubiquitous in Chinese buildings, where the material is used in a wide variety of building applications, from flooring to roofing and exteriors.
“They use it everywhere,” Horten said.
Horten said Fujfilm saw its business in China steadily expand from 2015 to 2018, when the slowdown in construction began to lower demand for the industrial print heads required to stamp designs on ceramic tiles.
At the peak in 2017, Fujifilm added a new two-day, 20-hour weekend production shift to handle expanding manufacturing capacity to meet higher demand.
But as China’s economic expansion slowed and demand for tile print heads declined, Fujifilm eliminated the weekend shift last December, Horten said.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
