Daimler Trucks North America, a major employer in the Charlotte region, will lay off 2,300 workers in Ontario, Canada, and Portland, Ore. And the truck manufacturer will reduce its salaried work force by an additional 1,200 jobs.
A Daimler spokeswoman says 200 of the salaried positions will be cut in Michigan. The remaining 1,000 staff reductions will take place across the country. She was unable to say if any cutbacks will occur at the company’s Charlotte-area operations.
The company, formerly known as Freightliner, cites depressed demand and structural changes in its core markets.
Portland-based Daimler says it will discontinue its Sterling Trucks line. About half of the 1,200 salaried job cuts are related to that decision, the company says.
And, as a result of that move, Daimler will cease making trucks at its St. Thomas, Ontario, plant in March.
In addition, Daimler will close its Portland truck-manufacturing facility in June 2010.
Of the 2,300 jobs to be cut at the two sites, 720 will take place, as previously announced, in Ontario next month.
Also, some of the affected operations will move to Daimler sites in Mexico and the Carolinas, the company says.
Daimler says the ceasing of production in Portland won’t prompt the company to move its headquarters to another city. Daimler has about 2,200 employees in Portland.
The company recently moved its sales, marketing and customer-support functions to Fort Mill from Portland. Daimler is moving more than 340 workers to a 150,000-square-foot leased office building off Interstate 77.
It also recently purchased 396 undeveloped acres along S.C. Highway 274 in York County, near Lake Wylie. The Fort Mill jobs are slated to move eventually to the Lake Wylie site, where Daimler plans to build an administrative facility by 2012. York County officials believe the company will eventually move its entire headquarters to that campus. But Daimler officials have said they have no current plans to bring additional employees to York County.
Daimler operates three plants in the Charlotte region — in Gastonia, Mount Holly and the Rowan County town of Cleveland. At times, those operations employed as many as 6,000.
Last month, the company reinstated a partial second shift at the Cleveland plant, its largest production facility. With that move, Daimler rehired 650 employees, boosting the truck-assembly plant’s work force to 1,985.
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