Kenworth will furlough or reassign 401 workers at heavy-duty truck plants in Renton and Seattle, WA, beginning this Monday, sources disclosed to Stark's News Service Interactive.
It will also idle the plants for two days next month due to a sharp industry-wide slowdown in sales of Class 8-type heavy-duty trucks.
Kenworth will lay off 351 hourly assembly workers and 50 salaried employees here for an undetermined length of time beginning April 3, the same day it trims production of Class 8-type heavy-duty trucks by 38.9%. However, some employees may be shifted to the Seattle facility, resulting in net furloughs of "about 300" people, a PACCAR spokesman said.
Sources here also told SNS Interactive today that Kenworth will halt assembly of the trucks at both plants this April 7 and April 17 to reduce inventory levels. The shutdowns will remove 80 units of Kenworth-branded trucks from next month's production schedules.
Kenworth disclosed earlier this month that it will reduce output of Class 8-type trucks at here this April 3 to 36 units per day from the current rate of 50 units per day. It also idled heavy-duty truck production lines twice this month here and at another plant in Chillicothe, OH, taking 204 units of trucks out of production.
However, the firm will not reduce assembly at Seattle, a site it shares with another PACCAR subsidiary, Peterbilt Motors Co. PACCAR builds four units of Kenworth-branded heavy-duty trucks and four units of Peterbilt-branded heavy-duty trucks per day at the Seattle factory.