KANSAS CITY – It’ll be a rough holiday season for dozens of Kansas City area workers, as a local manufacturer of automotive equipment has just alerted the state about nearly 150 planned upcoming layoffs.
Officials at Martinrea Riverside say they expect to layoff 69 workers as of December 6th, and another 75 employees on January 17th. The 144 workers that will lose their jobs make up roughly half of the workforce at the 275-thousand square foot facility in Riverside, Missouri. A majority of those being laid off are production workers and material handlers.
The company says the job cuts are because one of its customers is accelerating the end of production of certain products; and it will not award Martinrea future business for other product lines that the company had previously anticipated.
When the Martinrea Riverside manufacturing facility opened in 2015, it received over $3-million in tax credits and job training incentives.
Production there has included everything from gas tanks for agriculture machinery to double-decker bus frames. The Riverside operation is a subsidiary of Martinrea International Inc., based in Ontario, Canada.