Freightliner lays off nearly 1,000 workers

Quimby Mug Bayou Florida Headshot
Frieghtliner’s largest truck plant in the U.S., located in Cleveland, N.C., issued layoff notices Monday to 936 employees, or one-third of its workforce.Frieghtliner’s largest truck plant in the U.S., located in Cleveland, N.C., issued layoff notices Monday to 936 employees, or one-third of its workforce.

Citing a decline in new truck orders, Freightliner issued layoff notices to 936 of its workers at its plant in Cleveland, N.C.

Employees at the Cleveland Truck Manufacturing Plant were laid off Monday at work after returning from a two-week winter vacation, wsoctv.com reports.

Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), which owns Freightliner, announced that the job cuts are temporary and caused by a reduction in orders for new trucks. The Cleveland plant is the largest Freightliner plant in the U.S. It produces class 8 Freightliner and Western Star trucks.

“DTNA is reducing output by one-third at the Cleveland Facility in anticipation of a softer North American truck market in 2016, which will be somewhat below the very strong market of 2015,” a DTNA statement reports.

Employees who received layoff notices will work up until this Friday, at which point they will continue receiving a regularly scheduled paycheck until early March.

A United Auto Workers Union representative told WSOC-TV that the UAW received a layoff notice dated Dec. 31. A plant manager announced the news to workers as their shift began on Monday morning.

The Cleveland Truck Manufacturing Plant opened in 1989. Truck models manufactured there include the Cascadia, Argosy, Coronado, Columbia, Western Star 4700, Western Star 4900 and Cascadia Natural Gas.