Here's a piece of good news from the manufacturing industry. While other garments manufacturer have cut jobs, luxury lingerie maker Frederick’s of Hollywood Group Inc. announced it will move its manufacturing operations to the Philippines.

In a statement released early this month, executive chair Peter Cole said “an unprecedented negative macroeconomic environment” in the US has “significantly impacted” the company’s first-quarter results.

“In response, we are continuing to reduce operating expenses, primarily through reductions in personnel,” Cole was quoted in the statement as saying.

He added that since Frederick’s merged with its parent FOH Holdings Inc. in January, the company has “terminated approximately 15 percent of our domestic employees [other than store personnel] and have transitioned certain manufacturing support functions previously performed by some of these employees to our facility in the Philippines.”

“This net reduction in workforce has resulted in an annualized net salary savings of approximately $3.8 million.”

Formerly Movie Star Inc., Frederick’s primarily sell women’s intimate apparel and related products under its eponymous brand through more than 130 specialty retail stores in the United States.

It carries the following branded products: Seduction by Frederick’s of Hollywood and the Hollywood Exxtreme Cleavage bra and Original Sex Symbol. It also sells wholesale throughout US and Canada its Cinema Etoile line of intimate apparel.

Frederick’s announcement comes three months after the successive declines in US consumption rates forced local lingerie makers to close down permanently.

Pacita Marcellana of Carina Apparel cited Prima Lingerie Inc., New Waves Apparel Inc., Blue Horizon Logistics & Sourcing Inc. and Sensous Lingerie Inc. as some of these companies.

“Our company, in order to survive and prevent closure of operations, must adopt economic measures. Under the circumstances, our company has no alternative but to embark on a retrenchment program to prevent further losses, which are heavily bleeding financially,” Marcellana, HR manager, said in her letter to retrenched employees in August.

Carina, a locator in the Laguna International and Industrial Park Special Economic Zone, had laid off more than a thousand garments workers.

The wholly owned subsidiary of British Virgin Islands-based Ace Style International Limited manufactures ladies’ undergarments such as bra, camisole, brief, bikini, panties, thongs and T-shirts.

It was one of four companies bought for HK$330 million in July by Hong Kong-based Top Form International Ltd.

Marcellana said the retrenchment was implemented because Carina Apparel “cannot maintain its present number of employees due to lack of orders and the weak market for its products which expectedly, with the present global economic conditions, would continue for a long time.”

She wrote that consumers in the US, the firm’s principal market, “spend their income first in paying home loan mortgages, food and education, with garments as the last priority.”

Frederick’s Cole echoed such view, saying in the statement “[i]n view of the current state of the economy and its anticipated continued impact on consumer spending through the holiday season and beyond, we will continue to operate our business prudently.”