Belden Inc., a maker of signal transmission devices, plans to close its manufacturing plant in Chemung County and move 50 of the plant's 173 jobs to DeWitt by the end of the year.a connector picture:

The move will result in the loss of 123 jobs when the plant in Horseheads is closed.

"Belden does not make these decisions lightly, but this is a necessary change in order for the company to stay competitive in the marketplace and support the company’s growth objectives," the company said in a statement Tuesday.

Eric Ehlers, a spokesman for the company, said the employees who will lose their jobs were informed today and will receive severance pay and assistance in their job search. He declined to provide details of the severance package.

Both the Horseheads and DeWitt manufacturing plants were acquired by St. Louis-based Belden as part of its purchase of ppc, formerly known as Production Products Co., in December for $515.7 million.

BeldenEhlers said the DeWitt facility, where PPC was based, employs 320 people. After 50 jobs from the Horseheads facility are moved there, the Onondaga County facility will have 370 employees, he said.

employs more than 6,000 people globally.

The Horseheads and DeWitt facilities make electric cable connector, amplifiers and splitters for the cable television industry.

Ehlers said the Horseheads plant, about 84 miles southwest of Syracuse, had not operated at full capacity in many years.

"We did an analysis," he said. "There were redundancies in the operation."