Published: January 07, 2009 09:55 am         

About 70 lose jobs

Most recent layoffs were effective Dec. 31

Late last month, the Stillwater Mercury MerCruiser plant laid off employees for the third time in 2008.

“About 70” employees were laid off effective Dec. 31, said Jamie Payne, director of human resources. That followed the layoff of 130 people in June and 68 people in August.

“We are obviously continuing to see a degradation in demand,” Payne said. “We adjusted our staffing levels accordingly.”

Mercury Marine is a division of Brunswick Corp. The Stillwater plant manufactures sterndrive engines.

Payne said the plant is down to about 550 employees, including some temporary “contract employees doing specialized engineering services so we can continue working on innovation and hopefully increase our market share.”

She said most of the reductions were in the production area. Company officials hope that when the economy improves and business picks up they will be able to rehire workers, she added.

“There are no plans in place to close the plant,” Payne said. “We are one of the largest manufacturing facilities for Mercury Marine and one of the most economical facilities that they own. There are currently no plans to shut this facility down.”

She also said the company has no plans for further reductions.

The plant was furloughed for eight days in the final two months of 2008 as well.

In December 2005, MerCruiser announced a $5.5 million expansion to the plant, which then had a workforce of 1,050 people, making it Stillwater’s largest private employer.

Josh McKim, Stillwater Chamber of Commerce economic development director, said the layoffs are “a pretty sad deal.”

“We had a job fair back in November, and we will probably have another one in the near future to try to connect those workers laid off prior to that and recently laid off with potential jobs,” he said. “We will do that to try to help.”

He said the worst part is that “very, very, very good people” are losing their jobs.

“These are the top-notch people they are letting go,” McKim said. “That makes it doubly hard. These people have made that place a career for them. We just want to make sure the chamber and the city do everything they can to support these people as they go through this process.”

Attempts to reach three spokespeople with Mercury Marine and Brunswick through phone calls and e-mails on Tuesday were not successful.

Brunswick released a statement Monday saying it was closing its Riverview boat manufacturing facility near Knoxville, Tenn.

     

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