The Trane Residential Solutions plant in Fort Smith will be laying off 212 employees by the end of the year, Trane’s parent company announced Friday.
Ingersoll Rand, the parent firm, plans to move part of its production from the Trane plant in Fort Smith to a plant in Lynn Haven, Fla.
About 197 hourly employees and 15 salaried employees will lose their jobs, Ingersoll Rand said in a statement. Seventy-seven of those positions will be eliminated by the end of the first quarter, and the remaining 120 will be cut by the end of the fourth quarter.
However, "The actual number of employees affected could change depending on fluctuations in production levels, attrition and other factors," Ingersoll Rand spokesman Paul Dickard said.
The company cited "an economic environment that requires considering every opportunity to reduce our cost structure to remain competitive," adding that "this move will reduce costs, provide better utilization of our available capacity, establish dual sourcing of our residential packaged product, and improve our ability to serve our East Coast customers."
The Fort Smith Residential Solutions plant, which makes residential and light commercial air-conditioning products, employs about 455, Dickard said. About 415 of those are hourly workers and 40 are salaried.
Dickard said the company’s other plant in Fort Smith, a custom air handling manufacturing plant, wouldn’t be affected. That plant employs about 250.
Sign up for Daily E-news
