Volvo Trucks North America has confirmed that it will be reducing production of several truck lines and will therefore be laying off 1 in 4 workers beginning in February of next year.
Corporate officials made the announcement of the scaleback on December 1. According to John Meece, Vice President for Communications, current employees were to be told if they are being laid off as they began their shifts Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, it’s true,” Meece told the media. “We very much regret having to take this action.”
“We communicated in the second quarter that we expected 2015 to be the truck market’s peak year in this cycle, and it’s now clear we’re going through an industry-wide correction. We regret having to take this action, but we operate in a cyclical market, and we have to adapt to market demand,” Volvo said in a statement released Tuesday. “Highway customers, who drove much of the recent market growth, have largely accomplished the expansion and renewal of their fleets, so demand from that segment in particular is softening. The U.S. economy also is navigating through a soft interval caused by high inventory levels, which has decreased manufacturing and freight levels.”
The announcement was made in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988, the federal rules governing mass layoffs.
The job cut will begin in the first week of February and will continue for three weeks. A total of 730 workers will be laid off at the Dublin, Virginia, plant. The plant currently employs 2,800 workers.
The Dublin plant is the largest Volvo truck manufacturing plant in the world and produces all Volvo trucks sold in North America.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston, or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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