Pierce Manufacturing to Cut 325 Jobs

The name Pierce Manufacturing is not one that many of you may be familiar with, that is unless you happen to buy a lot of really big vehicles for cities or companies. For those of us who don’t have that kind of a job here is a look at how the company has chosen to describe itself, “Pierce Manufacturing Inc., an Oshkosh Corporation [NYSE: OSK] company, is the leading North American manufacturer of custom fire apparatus. Products include custom and commercial pumpers, aerials, rescue trucks, wildland trucks, minipumpers, elliptical tankers, and homeland security apparatus. In addition, Pierce designs its own foam systems and was the first company to introduce frontal airbags and the Side Roll Protection system to fire apparatus. To learn more about Pierce, visit www.piercemfg.com”

Apparently, the company is getting ready to make a radical shift in staffing. They are getting ready to do all of that without more than 300 of its workers. The company put out a notice about the layoffs they are planning to perpetrate on 325 of their employees. The workers in question will be cut from the company’s Bradenton plant, which focuses primarily on the construction of emergency medical transports.

Because the cuts are coming from a single location it is enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines.  For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” The only good news is that because this is a mass layoff action the workers will be given some serious warning time to prepare for the job cuts, and to begin the search for a new job before they have to transition onto the unemployment rolls.

Interestingly enough the company has not made much in the way of a statement about the job cuts, unless you count notification filed with the state about an impending mass layoff action. They have however put out a press release about growth with the company, though they did not mention the impending job cuts, “Pierce Manufacturing, an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE:OSK) company, and part of the Oshkosh Fire & Emergency segment, has delivered a 75-foot Pierce Ultimate Configuration (PUC) aerial ladder and a PUC pumper to Toronto Pearson International Airport (Toronto Pearson) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A Pierce heavy-duty rescue vehicle will follow and be placed into service in August. Toronto Pearson already has a fleet of Oshkosh Striker aircraft rescue and fire fighting vehicles and H-Series™ snow removal vehicles on duty.”