AUBURN - TRW Automotive laid off an additional 29 employees this week after having laid off 36 hourly employees last month.
The company, a global auto component maker that operates a plant at Cranebrook Drive in Auburn, laid off 24 hourly workers and five salaried employees Wednesday.
“This is a temporary layoff due to the conditions in the North American industry, and in particular the truck and SUV market,” said John Wilkerson, a spokesman from the company's headquarters in Livonia, Mich. “It's primarily the same reasoning as the original layoff, just getting less customer orders and thus need to make less production. So we have to basically shift the workforce at those times.”
There are no more layoffs anticipated at this time, Wilkerson said.
“We certainly hope that customer orders will either stay steady or increase but nobody can really predict or ensure that this will happen,” he said. “The answer really is, there aren't any plans at this time, but it is still dependent on the orders we get from the customers.”
The salaried workers, who were treated as more of a permanent layoff, will get a severance package that will include some monetary compensation as well as assistance with finding a new job. The hourly employees will not receive any severance pay because the layoff is temporary at this point, Wilkerson said.
There are currently 289 employees at the plant, 70 of which are salaried, he said.
TRW's finances have struggled in recent months. It closed trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday at $19.34 per share, significantly below its 52-week high of $33.52.
The county unemployment level continues to increase, with a jobless rate of 5.3 percent for July, up from 4.4 percent in June. The July 2007 rate for Cayuga County was 4.4 percent.
“Again, these are temporary layoffs,” Wilkerson said. “If customer orders come back, a portion or all of those workers can be called back at some point.”
Still, Wilkerson could not give a timeline for when the laid off employees would be able to return to work.
“If anybody had a crystal ball, that would be great,” he said. “It really is dependent on what happens in the industry. It's very difficult to say for sure when the industry's going to improve.”
Staff writer Gitana Mirochnik can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or gitana.mirochnik@lee.net
“This is a temporary layoff due to the conditions in the North American industry, and in particular the truck and SUV market,” said John Wilkerson, a spokesman from the company's headquarters in Livonia, Mich. “It's primarily the same reasoning as the original layoff, just getting less customer orders and thus need to make less production. So we have to basically shift the workforce at those times.”
There are no more layoffs anticipated at this time, Wilkerson said.
“We certainly hope that customer orders will either stay steady or increase but nobody can really predict or ensure that this will happen,” he said. “The answer really is, there aren't any plans at this time, but it is still dependent on the orders we get from the customers.”
The salaried workers, who were treated as more of a permanent layoff, will get a severance package that will include some monetary compensation as well as assistance with finding a new job. The hourly employees will not receive any severance pay because the layoff is temporary at this point, Wilkerson said.
There are currently 289 employees at the plant, 70 of which are salaried, he said.
TRW's finances have struggled in recent months. It closed trading on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday at $19.34 per share, significantly below its 52-week high of $33.52.
The county unemployment level continues to increase, with a jobless rate of 5.3 percent for July, up from 4.4 percent in June. The July 2007 rate for Cayuga County was 4.4 percent.
“Again, these are temporary layoffs,” Wilkerson said. “If customer orders come back, a portion or all of those workers can be called back at some point.”
Still, Wilkerson could not give a timeline for when the laid off employees would be able to return to work.
“If anybody had a crystal ball, that would be great,” he said. “It really is dependent on what happens in the industry. It's very difficult to say for sure when the industry's going to improve.”
Staff writer Gitana Mirochnik can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or gitana.mirochnik@lee.net
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