More layoffs at IC Corp.

Employees were told Tuesday that IC Corp. will have another layoff, a spokesman for parent company Navistar confirmed.

Spokesman Roy Wiley said Wednesday afternoon he had just learned "We will be having some layoffs at the plant. We don't have the exact numbers. The change will take us down to producing only eight vehicles per day."

He said the plant has been producing 16 buses per day. He said the reason for the cut in production was "the cancellation of a huge order."

Wiley said, "School bus orders, along with trucking orders, are just not there, because of the economy. The market is very weak. There have been some layoffs at other plants, and some plants have taken down weeks, where they have shut down for a week. This is the worst in 30 years."

Navistar makes heavy trucks and medium-sized trucks as well as school buses. Wiley said orders are down across the board because of unfavorable economic conditions.

IC Corp laid off 300 employees in January 2008.

Plant employee Dewayne Skinner said employees were notified about the latest impending layoffs on Tuesday during a 10-minute meeting.

"Today personnel almost immediately started passing out slips," he said Wednsday. "That's how quick this thing happened," he said.

He was given a layoff slip and told March 19 would be his last day, he said. He still has to meet with the personnel department to determine whether he has "bumping rights." Employees with enough seniority who are affected by the layoff may choose to take a lower pay grade job and "bump" another employee.

Skinner said he has worked at IC Corp more than 14 years and has been laid off multiple times from the plant. He was affected by the last layoff in January but was "called back," to the plant in April, he said.

He said about one-fourth of employees at the plant received layoff notices on Wednesday. He estimated the layoff would affect 25 percent of employees.

If he loses his job again, he will "sign up for unemployment, then start job searching in a busted economy," he said.

Arkansas' unemployment rate rose to 6.4 percent in January, according to a press release from the Department of Workforce Services. The state's civilian labor force declined 3,400 between December and January, the report said. The United States' unemployment rate increased four-tenths of a percent to 7.6 percent.

DWS Communications Director Kimberly Friedman said, "Even though Arkansas has experienced significant job losses, our unemployment rate is still more than a full percentage point lower than the national rate."

(Staff writer Rachel Parker Dickerson can be reached by e-mail at rachel.dickerson@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1277. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)