Topy Lays Off 45 at US Steel Wheel Factory

Kentucky, US based newspaper The State Journal reports that Topy America has laid of 45 hourly employees from its Franklin County steel wheel production facility. These redundancies represent approximately 16 per cent of the subsidiary’s Kentucky factory workforce. The company’s other US operations have not been affected.

According to plant director Tom Trzazkus, the layoffs were necessary “due to the current economic conditions and the slowing of sales within the automotive industry.” In addition to the redundancies, a raft of other changes were made “to ensure the continuation of this business in the short term,” a press release sent to the newspaper by Trzazkus said.

“We regret having to take this action as all other measures were exhausted in attempts to combat the spiralling sales declines of the American automotive industry, as well as the Japanese transplants,” the news release stated. “Long-term we feel the economic conditions will correct themselves and we’ll get back to business as usual with the hope of recalling these associates within the next six months.”

The Kentucky factory has produced steel wheels since 1986, and began the production of aluminium wheels there in 1989. In early 2007 Topy announced it would close its aluminium wheel production at the site by the end of September that year, at the cost of 250 jobs.