North Carolina-based Qualex Inc. is laying off 81 workers in East Hartford, according to a notice filed with the state Labor Department.
The layoffs will be accomplished by Sept. 28, according to the Labor Department filing, known as a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notice for short.
The WARN notice did not indicate whether the large number of layoffs also means that one of two sites in East Hartford will close. Qualex is listed as having two buildings in town, one at 221 Prestige Park Road, and a second at 88 Prestige Park Circle.
A company official could not be reached for immediate comment.
Qualex was founded in March 1988 as the result of a joint venture between Fuqua Industries and the Eastman Kodak Co. By 1994, the company had acquired more than 20 smaller photo finishing companies and had become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak Company.
The company bills itself as “the largest wholesale and on-site photo-finishing company in the world,” offering traditional print and digital photo services through commercial and in-store labs throughout the United States and Canada. The company and is headquartered in Durham, N.C., and operates 30 wholesale photo processing labs, like the one in East Hartford, across the U.S.
