An industry slowdown in new truck orders due partly to an abundance of good deals on used trucks has led to a cut in 400 production jobs at the Dublin, VA, plant of Volvo Trucks of North America.

The glut in used trucks has pushed values down as much as 30%. "Customers say they can get good used equipment at reasonable prices," noted company spokesman, Phil Romba. Some new truck customers with trade-ins have postponed the switch because "they don't want to take that hit," Rombasaid.
The company does expect the market to rebound once the used truck situation bottoms out. Meantime, it has laid off over half of the new workers hired in 1999 at its Dublin plant, mainly to staff a second line.
The company continues work on its $148 million expansion, set to open late in 2002.