We welcome you to JobBank USA and hope your job hunting experience
is a pleasant one. We hope you find our resources useful.
January 12, 2008
AIC Corporation's parent company, Navistar, announced Friday it will lay off about 300 employees at its Conway plant.
In June, the company issued a WARN Act that as many as 500 employees could be laid off. At the time of the WARN Act, Spokesman Roy Wiley said the layoffs were due to an industry-wide downturn in demand for buses. The trend was caused by new emissions standards placed on the industry by the Environmental Protection Agency. The new standards make 2007 and later year-model buses and heavy- and medium-duty trucks more expensive, which led to "pre-buying" of the vehicles in 2006, Wiley said.
Navistar announced Friday that IC Corp is building buses at a rate higher than its order receipts and it will take a down week beginning Jan. 28. When production resumes Feb. 4, reduced daily output will result in layoffs, according to a prepared statement.
Wiley said Friday the Conway plant has well over 1,000 employees. The company does not have to file a WARN act, as it would if it were laying off 40 to 50 percent of its workforce, he said.
Wiley said other reasons for softness in the market include economic conditions that make it more difficult for school districts to buy buses and an increase in commodity prices, which drove up the price of buses more.
Employees have been notified of the pending layoffs, and there will be some unemployment compensation, he said.
There are no plans at this time for other layoffs in the company, although Wiley noted there were layoffs last year in other areas of the company. A Springfield, Ohio, plant, which produces medium duty trucks, and a Chatham, Ontario, plant, which produces heavy duty trucks, both had layoffs last year, he said.
Brad Lacy, president and CEO of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, said Friday, "(IC Corporation is) important not only to Conway but to the whole region. We were able to kind of dodge the bullet back in the summer when they had initially planned to do a layoff. It's obviously market-driven, so our hopes are that the market improves for buses."
Email This Page!