Caterpillar lays off 121 workers

Caterpillar, that has been employing workers at a little of the U.S. plants recently, one after another the downsizing efforts in Clayton with Wednesdays proclamation that it is laying off 121 workers.

The ultimate layoffs follow cutbacks in Clayton that were instituted in Apr and Dec 2008. Overall, Caterpillar laid off hundreds of workers in the Triangle last year as the retrogression harm direct for the products. The bulk of the companys 1,800 North Carolina workers are at operations in Clayton, Cary and Sanford.

The layoffs by one of Claytons largest employers came on the same day that Caterpillar voiced plans to sinecure 500 workers to enhance the generator of electric power plant in Newberry, S.C. The Peoria, Ill.-based association additionally pronounced last month that it was recalling about 100 laid-off workers at an Indiana plant since of increasing demand.

But Caterpillar did have a little upbeat headlines for the Clayton workers. Spokesman Jim Dugan pronounced the association is creation a poignant investment in a new public line that, total with a change of prolongation from overseas, will need adding workers in the not-too-distant future. He could not contend how most competence be removed or when.

Wednesdays layoffs are piece of a formerly voiced corporate restructuring that shifts prolongation of backhoes to the United Kingdom. The layoffs take outcome in 60 days.

In turn, Caterpillar additionally is alternate prolongation of circle loaders, a sort of earth-moving equipment, from the same U.K. plant to Clayton. The Clayton plant already churns out circle loaders, but the prolongation change and the new public line will enlarge the series of models it produces.

The new line will furnish a next-generation circle loader written to imitate with sovereign emissions standards that take outcome in 2012, Dugan said. Pilot prolongation of the new indication is approaching to proceed subsequent open or summer.

Employees were formerly told that layoffs were looming, and in the face of that the immeasurable infancy of those laid off Wednesday sealed up for intentional inducement packages offering by the company, Dugan said. He declined to yield sum about the packages.

Clayton Mayor Jody McLeod, who attended a assembly at the Caterpillar site on Wednesday, pronounced association officials positive workers they would suggest retraining options as laid-off employees see for new jobs.

When the new prolongation line is installed, a little workers could get rehired at Caterpillar, McLeod said.

McLeod pronounced he was unhappy about the layoffs, but hes carefree about the destiny of the association in Clayton.

"In this economy, everyone understands that companies are carrying to restructure," he said.

Johnston County has gotten great headlines on the pursuit front in the last multiform months. Drugmaker Talecris Biotherapeutics is expanding the operations in Clayton, and Northeast Foods, that reserve buns to McDonalds restaurants, voiced in Feb that it will set up a bakery in Clayton.

"We collect up jobs here and afterwards we spin around and lose jobs," pronounced Johnston County Commissioner Allen Mims, who voiced beating about Caterpillars move. "Until things collect up, I theory thats the name of the game."

Last year, Caterpillar separated 19,000 jobs worldwide, withdrawal it with 93,000 workers. Its 2009 income declined 37 percent to $32.4 billion. Profit declined 75 percent. However, the association expects income this year to climb in between 10 percent and twenty-five percent.

david.ranii or 919-829-4877