By Steve Garbacz, The Commercial Review
After a year, a Portland's man job and income were gone in an instant.
"They told us 'You're done,'" said Anthony Holcomb, one of 96 employees eliminated Monday at Portland's FCC (Indiana) Inc. plant.
These reductions are the first seen at FCC, which chose to "permanently reduce staffing" by 16 percent of its workforce Monday amid market conditions a press release deemed "unfavorable." The plant, which manufactures automobile clutches for producers such as Honda, cut salaried and hourly associates, slicing the workforce to 496. The press release said these terminations were the only planned reductions at this time.
Now Holcomb, a single father of two who has sacrificed the last year working on a line, is in a pinch.
"Everything I make I put into raising my two kids," he said. "I need that job to provide for them."
"I can understand the way things are laying people off, but when things improve, they should be the first ones on the phone calling us back," he said.
These cuts were just part of a black Monday, in which about 40,000 people around the U.S. lost their jobs.
Economists predict a net loss of another 2 million jobs in 2009 on top of 2.6 million lost in 2008. The unemployment rate has soared to a 16-year high - 7.2 percent - with predictions that it could push to double digits by the end of this year.
On the national scale, Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest mining and construction equipment producer, revealed nearly 20,000 job cuts, including 5,000 layoffs of white collar workers to be made by March.
Those ripples may be felt in Portland, where Caterpillar has been a longtime customer of ATI Portland Forge.
Portland Forge spokesmen were not available for comment this morning.
"It is unfortunate that we've seen this layoff at FCC," said Jay County Development Corp. director Bill Bradley this morning. "Honda sales have been down significantly over the past several months."
Bradley, along with a consensus of economists nationwide, expects the future to be rocky for the manufacturing industry, but also thinks that Jay County may weather the storm a bit better than other areas in the region.
"When you look at the diversification of the manufacturing base in Jay County, we're probably in a better position right now than a lot of other places," he said. "The fact that we don't have all our eggs in one basket will probably bode better for us."
For areas like Adams County, with several boat and RV factories, or Grant County, with a heavy automotive focus, the shakeup in those markets is considerably hurting the workforce, though Bradley admitted "We're all going to be hit by it."
Other producers in Jay County appear to be holding steady at the moment, giving some credence to the diversification benefit.
"We're doing fine here at the present time," said Cline Bryan, human resource manager at Stoneridge Inc. in Portland. Bryan said the company, an electronics supplier, said there are currently no plans for staff cuts. "We've still been hiring almost weekly. Right now we're OK. We're hoping for the best."
Bradley said, however, that until consumer confidence is out of the dumps, the strain on manufacturers across the nation could continue.
"There's a whole generation out there that hasn't seen anything but good times. This is going to be a real struggle for a lot of people," he said. "The psychological process you go through now is different from what you did six months ago."
While people are attempting to save money and cut corners, Bradley said consumers are hesitant to make purchases they may have made without second though a year ago. That consumer timidity continues to hurt producers or luxury items such as new cars or expensive electronics.
"Until we get out of that funk like that, that's going to be a major challenge for consumer durable goods," Bradley said.
And until the manufacturing sector rights itself, Indiana workers should be prepared for rough seas.
"Overall, the state of Indiana ... we make things here," Bradley said. "That's always been our tradition. That's been our bread and butter for 100 years."
The CR's Mike Snyder and the Associated Press contributed to this report.