Caterpillar laid off employees this week at its Green Valley proving grounds just three months after announcing it would move its regional headquarters to Tucson.
A spokeswoman on Saturday said there were “some reductions” in workforce as part of ongoing restructuring in the company, which has been hard hit by a slowdown in demand for mining products. Sources put the number at about 100 job losses, with a mix of Caterpillar employees and contract workers. Caterpillar would not confirm that number.
“We aren’t specifying numbers impacted by location,” spokeswoman Rachel Potts said.
Potts said the layoff would not affect plans to put 600 executive-level jobs in downtown Tucson over the next five years in a deal announced in May. Those jobs include executives, engineers and other high-salary positions with an expected economic impact of more than $600 million.
The layoffs came three days after Caterpillar announced a 16 percent drop in second-quarter sales and revenue from a year ago and are part of an ongoing series of job losses and plant closures since 2012. Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman said in an earnings report that 2016 would likely be Caterpillar’s “fourth down year for sales and revenues,” but touted gains in China despite a rough economy.
Caterpillar has laid off more than 31,000 employees worldwide since mid-2012, or more than 10 percent of its workforce, as it closed or consolidated more than 20 plants, according to reports.
The includes 475 people a year ago, mostly at its Peoria, Ill., headquarters after a sluggish second-quarter earnings report in 2015. The company laid off 820 workers this year in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi.
In May, the Green Valley proving grounds had about 300 employees, but that was expected to grow as it closed operations across the country and moved workers to the Tucson area. The Green Valley proving grounds opened in 1990.
