News & Reviews News Wire Motive Power laying off nearly half of Idaho workforce NEWSWIRE

Motive Power laying off nearly half of Idaho workforce NEWSWIRE

By Angela Cotey | May 31, 2016

| Last updated on November 3, 2020

Company says low locomotive demand is a cause for the cutbacks

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MotivePowerlayoffs
Photographers spotted MotivePower’s HSP-46 No. 2003 at Pueblo, Colo., in 2013, in transit to the nearby Transportation Technology Center. The locomotive manufacturer says it will lay off more than 200 workers as the demand for new units slows.
Daren Genau
BOISE, Idaho — Officials with MotivePower Inc. say they’ll lay off 210 people at the company’s locomotive manufacturing plant in Boise.

The Wabtec Co. subsidiary informed the Idaho Department of Labor that the employees would be out of work in late-July, KIVI-TV reports. MotivePower Vice President John Howard tells the television station that a decline in the freight industry resulted in fewer orders for locomotives. The layoff will cut the company’s workforce in half, officials say.

“A number of our customers in the freight industry have curtailed their capital spending for 2017,” Howards says. “So unfortunately we are having to react as well.”

MotivePower has manufactured and remanufactured more than 2,500 locomotives at its 300,000-square-foot facility since the 1970s. These include the popular “MPXpress” series of diesel-electric passenger locomotives that commuter agencies from around the country have bought.

11 thoughts on “Motive Power laying off nearly half of Idaho workforce NEWSWIRE

  1. Railroads and suppliers have always laid off employees and parked locomotives in times of business downturns. Read old issues of Trains to see lines of older locomotives parked.

  2. They’re blaming rail-freight business downturns? MPI is hardly known for its sales of freight diesels. Let’s get real: they make commuter-rail power, for which there’s a very narrow market that only sporadically places such orders. Yes, it’s sad when a company resorts to layoffs, but if you’re going to compete in a very hostile and narrow market, then you have to outbuild and outsell the competition, and MPI isn’t doing that and really never has.

  3. It would be nice if General Electric was not so greedy & taking all these locomotives sales away from competitors.Motive Power is a casualty of GE’s kingmaking

  4. @JIM JONES
    Why companies keep disposing of their most valuable assets – skilled, experienced employees?

    No choice, keeping employees employed to long after a drop in sales is one of the common big mistakes that
    can destroy a business. When sales drop, income drops. When income drops, profit drops. Profit is what pays for those skilled assets. I speak from experience, I kept my best employed hoping this economy would return, it hasn’t and I’ve used up every penny I ever saved trying to keep the doors open. I’m broke, but gee they got to keep their jobs for a few extra years and now I get to start over at age 63. No money, no jobs.

  5. @Jim Norton…MotivePower is not a railroad, they’re a supplier/manufacturer…not comparable.

    @Jim Jones…note they specifically say layoff, not fired, layed off employees are able to recalled at a moments notice should a large amount of work appear, fired employees, not so quickly….there is a distinction.

  6. If I recall correctly, railroad traffic and employment is a leading indicator of the economy, right? This, and the declining traffic news we’ve seen lately, does not portend well for the future.

  7. Why companies keep disposing of their most valuable assets – skilled, experienced employees?

  8. The railroad lay offs keep coming and coming and coming. Can’t blame this on natural gas.

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