BMW BLOG

Here is an article from Greenvilleonline. Thanks Palbay!

As many as 733 temporary workers at BMW’s Greer plant will be laid off in December as the German automaker begins to feel the effects of the world financial crisis.
Job reductions at the plant that is a powerful economic engine sustaining thousands of jobs in the Upstate and across South Carolina are limited for now to temporary workers the plant employs through the MAU Inc. staffing company.

The plant has a permanent work force of about 5,400 BMW-hired workers, in addition to hundreds of contract and contingent employees.

Those jobs have a potent multiplier effect. An estimated 23,000 jobs have been created through a network of companies in the Upstate that supply the automotive parts and services. How this reduction could play out through that network was unclear late Thursday.

The company said, however, it remains focused on its planned expansion of the plant, which now makes the X3, X5 and X6 models. It plans to launch a diesel-power X5 this year and a hybrid X6 next year.

Bobby Hitt, a spokesman for BMW, said the company “is not unlike any other manufacturing facility in that it is not immune to uncertain circumstances that we are all witnessing in the economy and, more specifically, the automotive industry.”

The layoffs come after a drop in BMW’s U.S. sales in September. Sales of BMW-branded vehicles plunged nearly 30 percent, compared to the same month last year, the company said. Counting Mini-brand vehicles, the sales drop was 25.8 percent.

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