Employment at the county’s largest contract electronics makers was flat over the past 12 months, despite steady sales growth in the industry worldwide.
That’s been a recurring theme during the past few years in the local sector, which gained two jobs for a total of 2,515 employees, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The slight bump follows three years of nominal losses.
The 18 companies on the list combined to cut 28 jobs in the past four years.
The last sizeable gain took place in 2011, when employment increased 4.7% during the early days of the economic recovery.
Four companies added employees in the past year, and three cut workers. Four were flat from a year ago, and seven were Business Journal estimates.
Ireland-based Research and Markets forecasts sales in the electronics manufacturing services market to grow at a 6.2% compounded annual rate starting in 2014 and reaching $621 billion by 2019.
The local companies make printed circuit boards and other products for computers, consumer electronics and medical devices.
Some serve niche markets for products with military, aerospace and industrial uses.
Products made here end up in a wide variety of devices, including computers, aircraft, smartphones and medical devices.
Many contract electronics makers started here decades ago to serve a single customer and stayed competitive by designing and building prototypes or producing small batches on quick turnarounds for more diverse customer bases.
They compete against a variety of Asian competitors that produce less-complex boards and systems made in large volumes and at cheaper prices.
• Perennial No. 1, Santa Ana-based Express Manufacturing Inc., has an estimated 750 employees, flat from a year ago. The company makes industrial and telecommunications products and handles a lot of new product work.
• Costa Mesa-based TTM Technologies Inc., which has long held the No. 2 spot, shed nine employees here in the past year, leaving it with 435.
The nation’s largest printed circuit board maker could take over the No. 1 spot in terms of local jobs next year as a result of its $927 million buy in June of Viasystems Group Inc.
The deal for the St. Louis-based manufacturer creates one of the world’s largest printed circuit board makers, with about 30,000 employees and 28 manufacturing plants in the U.S. and China.
The combined sales of TTM and Viasystems are about $2.5 billion, just behind front-runner Nippon Mektron Ltd. of Tokyo, according to public filings and data from market researcher Prismark Partners LLC in New York.
The deal comes more than two years after Viasystems bought Anaheim-based circuit board maker DDi Corp. for $268 million, ending DDi’s 12-year stint as a Nasdaq-listed company.
• Anaheim-based Murrietta Circuits, one of the county’s oldest technology companies, fell to the No. 9 spot despite cutting 10 employees, leaving it with 85.
“Business was slow towards the end of last year and beginning of this year. However, things have improved substantially with some major contracts coming our way,” said Chief Executive Andrew Murrietta, whose father, Albert, established the company in 1980.
“We expect that things will be quite busy for the rest of this year and next year, with some very nice revenue growth.”
The company specializes in high-reliability circuit boards for the aerospace, military and medical industries.
Murrietta Circuits’ customers include Raytheon, Honeywell, Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications. Its boards are carried in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon aircraft, which is designed for long-range antisubmarine warfare, and in missiles, weapons and other guided munition programs.
• Brea-based Veris Manufacturing, No. 10, was the only newcomer to the list. The company, which specializes in quick turnaround and prototype assemblies for the aerospace, military, telecom, communications, and auto sectors, among others, added 10 employees, bringing its worker base to 80 workers.
