* Oy…
Caterpillar Inc. says it plans to lay off more than 460 employees this June at its plant in Decatur.
Rachel Potts is a spokeswoman for the Peoria-based company. She said Friday that Caterpillar is laying off the employees as part of an ongoing series of production cuts.
Caterpillar has said those cuts are in response to reduced global demand for mining equipment. The plant in Decatur builds products used in mining.
Cuts in some other locations have been temporary. Potts said the Decatur cuts are permanent.
As if Decatur doesn’t have enough problems already…
Decatur had the state’s highest jobless rate. It spiked from 10.9 percent in February 2012 to 13.7 percent.
It really looks like this state is going backwards.
- Belle - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 2:57 pm:
Office employees are also taking 6 day forloughs without pay this year.
- wordslinger - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 2:58 pm:
My first couple of years out of college, I spent most of my time covering layoffs and plant closings in Iowa and Illinois — CAT, Deere, IH.
It’s a global economy. If the demand ain’t there, it ain’t there.
As far as mining equipment goes, I think advances in natural gas use are going to keep coal on a downward curve.
- Arthur Andersen - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:02 pm:
word or anyone who knows-does fracking drive any machinery purchases or is the scale of work not sufficient?
- Endangered Moderate Species - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:10 pm:
The coal mining industry has been left out of the global economic recovery.
Freight Car America in Danville, builder of aluminum rail cars for coal carrying has also recently laid off over 200 workers.
Both CAT and FCA have worldwide markets.
- JoeInPeoria - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:16 pm:
wordslinger and Arthur Andersen….Cat can sell various equipment for coal or fracking….Cat bought Bucyrus a few years back, and also has plenty of coal mining equipment for sale. Pipeline laying equipment would be used for natural gas or petroleum pipelines.
- wordslinger - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:18 pm:
AA, I’m not positive, but I think fracking is more in line with drilling, not the big shovels taking off the tops of mountains.
Even China is trying to get off the coal, as they are choking themselves to death there.
- mjrothjr - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:22 pm:
Fracking drives some equipment purchases - you need excavators and similar equipment to mine the sand needed for the fracking mix.
- Empty Chair - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:29 pm:
Does the state have a problem, or does downstate have a problem? I don’t meant to be insensitive, but especially given the Philly Fed post from the other day, what would happen if you recalculated those numbers using everything north of I-80 and everything south of I-80 (arbitrary, I know), and calculated the economic outlook then?
Who wants to have the conversation that small-town life in America is dying? No one, sadly.
And, yes, I do live in Chicago, for full disclosure.
- NoGifts - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:34 pm:
It’s not just coal mining. Construction requires a huge amount of mining to provide building material.
- JoeInPeoria - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:40 pm:
Empty Chair…good point…Much too much to address that here.
But, need to point out that Cat has large facilities in Joliet and Aurora(both North of I-80) and certainly part of the Chicago area. Seems that Chicago folks don’t tend to know that, or that Cat is the largest private employer in Illinois. Also, many supplier companies for Cat located throughout Illinois.
Also, Belle is correct that Cat office employees will be taking work furloughs in 2013. This applies across the USA.
- PoolGuy - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:45 pm:
it’s sad that just a couple years ago with the Canadian oil sands and piplelines, the oil boom still going in North Dakota, and Chinese growth, that Cat looked unstoppable. this is no good.
- Arthur Andersen - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 3:57 pm:
Thanks for the info, folks.
- qcexaminer - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:01 pm:
The Cat plant in Seguin TX, near where I live, is hiring.
Y’all come! No state income tax either.
- wishbone - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:04 pm:
“I think advances in natural gas use are going to keep coal on a downward curve.”
Gawd, lets hope so. Coal is the biggest threat to human health and the environment (climate change) imaginable. Anything that reduces coal production and consumption is a unmitigated blessing for humanity.
- RNUG Fan - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:05 pm:
WordlingIer is right This is nothing to do with Illinois this is global. Europe is sliding so fast and China with its pollution disease and so on.
BUT GOOD NEWS We need some I think 3D Printing once called CAD CAM could revolutionize manufacturing and bring it all back home. It may even allow for individuals to enter it on their own for consumer goods and even meat at some point
- anon - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:15 pm:
Yes as Caterpillar joins the Chicago mayors immigration coalition in demanding more visa immigrant workers too. How about that! They can’t employ the immigrants now and want more.
- hisgirlfriday - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:17 pm:
Some CAT folks were taking furloughs already last year, apparently to give Cat something to brag about to shareholders that they were willing to be miserly enough to keep profits sky high even at the expense of the work force. I imagine this announcement comes as it does similarly just because of this weeks cat stock crash at the same time commodities have collapsed. I understand that Cat is just acting like the standard employer and the incentives of our economy are set up to push cat toward these layoffs but I just can’t help but be angry at the real possibility that decatur is taking a huge economic hit today not because of actual supply and demand but because of the whims of wall street speculators.
- Anonymous - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:19 pm:
Unfortunately CAT can’t just raise prices on customers to increase revenue or at least raise prices on customers with revenue > 1+ Billion to make it fair.
- unbiased observer - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 4:34 pm:
I agree with rich, when business leaders are thinking about where to expand and strengthen their operations, they are not likely putting Illinois at the top of their lists, for obvious reasons. look at the emergence of the auto industry across the south, as an example
further, when companies are forced to make cuts in their operations due to decreased global demand, the cuts will occur preferentially in less business friendly environments and they will tend to maintain operations as much as possible in more conducive environments.
- soccermom - Friday, Apr 5, 13 @ 5:07 pm:
After that horrible, horrible contract, now this. They almost doubled their profits from ‘10 to ‘11, when they notched almost $5 bb in profits.
I am a capitalist, but this makes me sick.
- wordslinger - Monday, Apr 8, 13 @ 9:19 am:
Unbiased, do you know something other than what CAT put out for their reasons? What is “unconducive” to CAT in Illinois? The corporate income taxes they don’t pay?
They were temporary workers, hired to ramp up production in a hurry when demand was strong, according to CAT.
Back in the real world, there’s was an interesting column yesterday by Robert Samuelson on U.S. manufacturing.
When it comes to manufacturing jobs, it’s not just demand, but the steady growth in productivity that impacts jobs.
Some takeaways:
–In 2010, U.S. manufacturing output of nearly $1.8 trillion was the largest in the world; it was slightly ahead of China, about two-thirds higher than Japan and nearly triple Germany’s.–
–In 2011, near record output was 72% more than in 1990 and six times greater than 1950.–
A lot more output, just fewer workers necessary to produce it.
–In 1970, the 17.8 million manufacturing jobs represented 25% of all 71 million U.S. jobs. By 2012, the 11.9 million manufacturing jobs were only 9% off the 133.7 million total.–
For some reason, I can’t cut and paste the link, but the whole column, “Myths of post-industrial America,” was in yesterday’s Washington Post.