“I will lose my job three days before Christmas, and a lot of others will, too,” he said. “We’ve got some families with a husband, wife and son working there.”
Johnson Controls, Trigg County’s largest manufacturing plant, will close by next summer and eliminate 559 jobs, or about 9 percent of the county workforce.
Many already have lost jobs, while others are signing up for voluntary cuts to get in line for what is roughly a 12-day lag in getting unemployment benefits, Adamov said.
Johnson Controls, which makes auto seat parts, is by far the largest of 10 employers to announce closings since Aug. 1 in Kentucky’s 13 westernmost counties from Cadiz west.
A total of 1,115 jobs will be lost.
American National Rubber, another Cadiz firm in the auto-supply chain, notified the state that it was cutting 16 jobs, effective Nov. 5. Friday it announced the layoffs of another 50 employees.
Eight other companies - six in Hopkinsville and two in Madisonville - have reported a total of 352 job cuts through closings or downsizing over the past four months, according to the Hopkinsville-based West Kentucky Workforce Investment Board.
“The greatest impact is on the auto-supply industry, but other industries are hurt because consumers are not buying products and services,” said Sheila Clark, board director. “I think our biggest challenge is how to help people find jobs when there are so few jobs out there right now.”
(The rest of this story can be found in this week's edition)
