Delta Faucet, GlasCraft lay off 165 workers

By Ted Evanoff, The Indianapolis Star
Posted: May 9, 2008

Factory layoffs at GlasCraft and Delta Faucet will idle about 165 workers in Indianapolis and Greensburg as manufacturers continue to cut jobs across Indiana.  Jobs cuts announced Thursday by the two manufacturers follow a slew of lay off notices since mid April that will displace more than 1,600 industrial workers.

The bulk of those layoffs will occur this summer when plants close permanently in the auto parts and metal industries, according to reports filed with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Squeezed by the nation's downturn in home sales, Carmel-based Delta Faucets gave notice to the state on Thursday that 95 employees in the Greensburg plant will lose their jobs, bringing the number of employees at Delta to 630, compared to more than 1,000 workers in the late-1990s.

Graco notified the state on Monday that it will close the GlasCraft business in Indianapolis it acquired in February and dismiss 70 workers. Production is going to Graco plants in Minneapolis, North Canton, Ohio and Sioux Falls, S.D.

In the last year, Indiana has shed 13,000 industrial jobs, reducing the number of manufacturing jobs to 539,300, a decline of 131,500 factory positions since the 2000 peak.

Manufacturers are shedding jobs throughout the Midwest as the Detroit automakers lose market share and cut orders for auto parts, while other plants replace workers with machinery or outsource work to Mexico, China and other low-wage nations, economists say. The trend is regarded as being particularly severe on the Indiana economy.

Pay for Indiana manufacturing employees averages about $775 a week, while weekly pay in the health services sector averages about $663, including physicians’ income, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.

Manufacturing isn’t the only sector in the state trending down. Stores and shops have let go 4,000 retail workers statewide.

Employment in the state actually would have contracted during the past year, BLS reports show, except metropolitan Indianapolis continued adding jobs.
Indiana has shed 20,000 jobs in all industries since employment peaked at 3 million in 2000. In the same years, metro Indianapolis has added about 62,000 jobs.

In the metro area, March’s employment level — 912,100 — was the highest for any March on record, BLS data shows.

About 2,400 new positions appeared in government and another 3,000 in the health industry.

In March, medical clinics, hospitals and other health care offices employed 10,000 more workers compared to a year ago, while state government has added 3,000 positions and local government has grown by 3,000 jobs, BLS reports show.

Outside the region, layoffs continue to hit factory cities. In Greensburg and Decatur County, for example, manufacturing employment has dropped by nearly 1,000 since 2000, affecting about 20 percent of the county’s industrial workforce.

Including the 95 workers recently let go, Delta Faucet has had three layoffs this year.
Factory employment numbers in Greensburg should improve when Honda opens a 2,000-employee Civic car assembly plant. Most of the workforce in the new Greensburg plant won’t be in place until the second shift starts early in 2009.

Honda has hired about 300 workers so far. Production is scheduled to start this fall.
Meanwhile, Delta Faucet’s parent, Masco Corp. of Taylor, Mich., is reeling from the downturn in housing sales. Including the 95 workers recently let go, Delta Faucet has had three layoffs this year.

Last month, Masco reported first-quarter profits had shrunk to $2 million, including one-time charges, compared to $134 million a year earlier. No quick turnaround is in sight. Masco predicted 2008 housing starts will decline as much as 33 percent compared to a year ago, and total about 1 million new dwellings nationwide.