Central Arkansas sees manufacturing job cuts

Officials with LM Glasfiber and Dassault Falcon Jet have announced in recent days almost 200 job cuts and layoffs, according to reports from Roby Brock at TalkBusiness.net, a content partner with The City Wire.

The Little Rock-North Little Rock metro area has seen its manufacturing employment fall from 24,100 in April 2008, to 23,100 in April 2009.

LM Glasfiber, a wind turbine blade maker, will operate a 24 hours a day, five days a week schedule and eliminate 80 jobs during the next 60 days at its Little Rock port facility. LM Glasfiber will still employ 300 in central Arkansas. It laid off about 150 workers in early January of this year. Company officials are hopeful for an end to the economic conditions that now depress the domestic wind energy market.

The wind turbine blade maker says it will operate a 24 hours a day, five days a week schedule and eliminate 80 jobs during the next 60 days at its Little Rock port facility.

“Our Little Rock operation is key for our North American operations and will be prepared to ramp up when growth returns to the wind market,” said Randy Fox, vice president general manager, North America for LM Glasfiber.

Dassault Falcon Jet announced the layoff 111 workers from its Little Rock completion center. Another 42 workers took advantage of an “early out” program bringing the center’s total workforce to 2,100 employees, about the same as it was in early 2008 according to a company statement.

Dassault modifies and upgrades multi-million dollar private jet interiors at its Little Rock aerospace center.

Link

here

to the LM Glasfiber report, and link

here

to the Dassault story.