Published: October 14, 2008 11:27 pm         

Great Dane lays off nearly half its workforce

Terre Haute plant to trim 108 workers Friday

TERRE HAUTE — Citing an economic downturn and a credit crunch to some small customers, Great Dane Trailers temporarily will lay off 108 workers — nearly 50 percent of its work force – at its Terre Haute plant.

The layoffs will take effect Friday.

The company reported the layoffs in an Oct. 8 letter to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The company said it is uncertain how long of the layoff will remain.

Gary Abell, spokesman for the Department of Workforce Development, said it was the first notice the department has received that states layoffs are directly tied to a national credit crunch.

In its notice, Kevin Black, plant manager for Great Dane’s Terre Haute plant, said the “unanticipated and dramatic major economic downturn which has occurred in the economy as a result of the current severe credit crunch has resulted in the inability of many smaller customers to secure financing and cut dramatically the demand for stock trailers.

“In addition, four major customers have either canceled anticipated orders, moved the setup dates for production into the future or changed the type of trailer requested, resulting in the order being handled by another Great Dane Trailers plant,” Black said in the letter.

“In sum, anticipated production of over 3,100 trailers at the Terre Haute plant will not take place,” he said.

The temporary layoffs include assemblers and associates (accounting for 81 workers) plus smaller numbers of machine operators, inspectors, materials handlers, maintenance technicians, painters, truck drivers and welders.

Brandie Fuller, vice president of marketing for Great Dane, said that after the layoff, the Terre Haute plant will have 175 workers. Great Dane in January temporarily laid off 75 workers from its Terre Haute plant. An additional 45 workers were released in February.

Fuller said many of those employees were brought back earlier this year.

“They have been brought back and reduced and brought back and reduced. This number [on Friday] does include some of the employees who had been brought back,” Fuller said.

Layoffs at Great Dane, Fuller said, are cyclical, “but this particular downturn has been extended because of the recessive state of the economy. The turn is much worse than what had been anticipated.”

Fuller said the trailer industry has seen “a decrease in the amount of freight tonnage that has been available for the last year and a half. Spiking fuel costs have been an additional pressure to customers and on top of that now, there is the credit crunch crisis which has just compounded the effect” of all those factors, she said.

“With less freight to haul, more expensive fuel to get it there, it has created an environment where there is plenty of equipment to satisfy the current demand and not a need for additional equipment. There is no growth happening at this point of time,” Fuller said.

“Until there is a change in the economy, there is not going to be a significant change in the freight tonnage,” she said. Recent lower fuel costs have not been enough to offset other market factors, she said.

The Terre Haute plant manufactures an extra wide enclosed hauling trailer, with an interior width of 101 inches. The plant had about 500 workers in 2006.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.