Under pressure from “market conditions,” farm equipment giant CNH plans both job cuts and layoffs at its Flexi-Coil seeding and tillage equipment plant in Saskatoon.
CNH Industrial said in a statement it will begin cutting 75 full-time positions at the plant in May. Employees were informed Monday of the coming cuts, the company said.
Another 338 employees at the Saskatoon plant will be temporarily laid off in May to return to work in August, the company said.
The plant, billed as CNH’s “manufacturing centre of excellence” for New Holland, Case IH and Flexi-Coil planting, seeding and tillage equipment and combine headers, came to CNH in 2000 when the company took over Saskatoon manufacturer Flexi-Coil.
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The plant, CNH’s only Canadian facility, last went through a major round of cuts in 2009, when it pared back to a single shift and laid off about 300 employees.
CNH in 2008 also reversed a planned move to close an Illinois plant and consolidate tillage equipment manufacturing in Saskatoon.
In its recent year-end report for 2014, CNH’s farm equipment segment booked a 9.3 per cent drop from 2013 in net revenues to $15.2 billion, a decrease it blamed mainly on “lower volumes and unfavourable product mix,” particularly in its North American and Latin American markets.
In the North American market, CNH reported a 25 per cent year-over-year drop in demand for both high-horsepower (over 140 hp) tractors and combines. — AGCanada.com Network
