Parker Hannifin will be entering into a period of consultation with the employees and their representatives to phase out manufacturing at a plant within its Cylinder Division located in Watford.

Parker Hannifin has announced that it will be entering into a period of consultation with the employees and their representatives to phase out manufacturing at a plant within its Cylinder Division located in Watford, Hertfordshire. The Cylinder Division, which has been manufacturing in Watford for more than 40 years, has been experiencing increasing uncertainty about the future of the current building lease and increasing difficulty in attracting suitable employees, due to the decline in the manufacturing based economy in the Watford area. As a consequence, it is proposed to transfer the manufacture of accumulators and tie-rod cylinders, which currently takes place at the Cylinder Division headquarter facility in Greycaine Road, Watford, to one of Parker's other Cylinder Division plants at Hellaby, near Rotherham in South Yorkshire.

The Watford facility currently employs 50 people, of whom 32 are expected to be involved in the consultation.

The headquarters and business development functions of the Division would remain in the Watford area, and it is anticipated that up to 18 new jobs would be created through expanded manufacturing and support facilities at the Hellaby plant.

With annual sales exceeding $9 billion, Parker Hannifin is the world's leading diversified manufacturer of motion and control technologies and systems, providing precision-engineered solutions for a wide variety of commercial, mobile, industrial and aerospace markets.

The company employs more than 57,000 people in 46 countries around the world, and over 3,500 people in the UK.

Parker has increased its annual dividends paid to shareholders for 50 consecutive years, among the top five longest-running dividend-increase records in the SandP 500 index