Caterpillar Inc., gearing down production even further in response to still-eroding global demand, disclosed plans Tuesday to idle an additional 2,454 U.S. workers, including 1,726 in Illinois.
The Peoria-based heavy-equipment giant has already announced 22,000 job cuts worldwide, with a good portion of those cuts in Caterpillar's home state.
Now it is making additional longterm layoffs in Aurora and East Peoria, although most of those workers will be able to return to work when demand improves in the future.
In the company's Lafayette, Ind., diesel-engine factory, Caterpillar said it has notified a total of 439 employees, 405 of them production workers and the remaining 34 management or support staff, that they will laid off for at least six months. The Lafayette plant, which makes diesel engines used in ships, the petroleum industry, electric-power generation and industrial applications, is experiencing lower demand, Caterpillar pointed out. "Depending on business conditions," the company said of the Indiana facility, "more layoffs and separations may be required as the year unfolds."
Chicago TribWait a minute. Didn't 0Bama tell us that Caterpillar would start rehiring people that had been laid off if his Porkulous bill was passed? He wouldn't lie to us would he?
