Some Jobs Heading From Georgia To Mexico

 Over 300 jobs will be cut when Cessna closes shop in Columbus, GA, sometime in the next six to twenty four months. The closure was announced to the local workers on Tuesday.

According to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Cessna spokesman Doug Oliver said some of the assembly jobs will be moving to Mexico while others will be picked up by operations in Independence, KS.

The plant initially employed about 600 workers when it opened the $25 million, 100,000-sq-ft facility in August 2008.  At the time Cessna planned to add another 150 jobs to the site.  Instead, layoffs started at the site in January have steadily decreased the workforce by half.

"No immediate jobs are impacted," Oliver told the paper. "It's a lengthy process to transition work out of there.  Once that transition process is complete, the facility there in Columbus will be closed." 

Oliver also said that other Cessna operations are "in the same boat," as sluggish aircraft sales have translated into fewer manufacturing jobs. As ANN reported in April, Cessna also closed a plant in Bend, OR, where 1600 jobs were eliminated after the suspension of the Citation Columbus program.

Asked about the specific timeline for layoffs, Oliver told the Ledger-Enquirer "We'll be offering incentives for employees to stay through scheduled departure dates, and there will be severance packages at the end of that, as we have with all of the reductions to date."

FMI: www.cessna.com