Talgo to Layoff

The odds are really good that you do not know about Talgo Inc. at all. So before we talk about the job cuts that they are perpetrating to their workers lets take a look at what the company actually does. For those of us not in the transportation industry here is a look ate how the company describes itself:

“Over 60 years have passed since that great initial venture six decades during which the rate of innovation has been maintained and enable Talgo to remain at the forefront of railway technology, producing Spain’s most prestigious industrial product. Talgo has built a strong reputation for producing and maintaining high quality, innovative and cost effective passenger cars in Spain. Since Talgo introduced its Pendular series of passenger cars in 1980, PTSL has extended its operations to other countries. Today, Talgo Trains provide daily service in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Canada and the United States.

Patentes Talgo currently employs over a 1000 people, distributed between the PTSL central office in Madrid, Spain, and the maintenance and manufacturing facilities of Las Rozas (Madrid, Spain), Las Matas I and II (Madrid, Spain), Rivabellosa (Alava, Spain), San Andres Condal (Barcelona, Spain), Berlin (Germany), Almaty (Kazakstan), Washington (DC), Seattle (WA), Milwaukee (WI), and Orlando (FL).

Patentes Talgo’s over-arching goal is to be an international industrial presence, recognized worldwide for its integrity, capacity for innovation, technology, quality, reliability and the added value of its services, its passion for technological development, the commitment and professionalism of its people, and its constant devotion to customer service. This goal is the basis of Talgo’s business culture.”

The roughly 1,000 person company is getting ready to layoff the workers. The workers who will be laid off are all related to a single project, the building of a pair of trains for the state of Wisconsin. The company will be cutting back on about 35 workers, though depending on whom you ask another 30 jobs in the maintaince department may also be a risk. The trains would have been passenger and not cargo trains.

Of course it is not only the ground based transportation services that are experiencing layoffs. Some of you may recall our recent coverage of the layoffs in air transportation in the recent past, but for those of you who may have missed out on it here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all:

“More bad news is coming to workers in the air transportation industry. As fewer and fewer people have money to fly frequently, or to ship large items long distances by plain, more and more airlines are cutting back on their staff. Of course, the rising prices of fuel are also contributing to the job cuts as well. Think of it as a kind of perfect storm for job cuts. The next workers on the chopping block are those at Air Seychelles Ltd….

According to reports the company is getting ready to get rid of about 250 of its workers. While that may not sound like a lot compared to other industry layoffs, it is a significant portion for Air Seychelles Ltd, and will leave the company with fewer than 500 workers on staff in total. So this layoff could have represented a loss of about one-third of the workers that the airline had.”