Honda closure creates painful ripple effect
543 layoffs at Brookville supplier latest result of the pandemic shutdown at one of state’s biggest employers.
Honda is one of the biggest automakers and employers in Ohio and its cessation of production in late March has had painful ripple effects.
Most recently, Green Tokai in Brookville temporarily furloughed 543 workers, the company told the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services in a letter dated Thursday.
“It is our intention to reopen operations in early May, if possible, but reopening will depend on circumstances associated with COVID-19, which are unknown and out of our control,” Kelli Todd, Green Tokai human resources manager, said in the letter.
Honda is Green Tokai’s largest customer, and that automaker has shut down all American operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Honda suspended auto production March 23, joining General Motors, Ford and other producers who also halted production about that time. Green Tokai isn’t the only affected auto supplier. Advanced Composites Inc. in Sidney, Greenville Technology Inc. in Darke County and many others have also filed WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice) notifications about large-scale layoffs.
“The pandemic impact and automotive market is changing daily, so we are putting ourselves in a position to be ready to come
back on line as soon as our customer needs and requirements return,” Chris Millice, senior vice president of manufacturer KTH Parts Industries, told the Dayton Daily News.
“At this time we are planning to start up mass production May 4th, again depending on all of our customer requirements,” said Millice, whose company is a Honda supplier in St. Paris.
KTH has 654 full-time workers temporarily laid off and 125 contingent workers temporarily laid off.
Honda itself has been forced to shift its approach. In a LinkedIn message by Rick Schostek, Honda North America Inc. executive vice president, Schostek said Honda’s Technical Development Center in Marysville has been transformed to make compressors for ventilators.
The center has been turned into an assembly area where workers “will soon make diaphragm vacuum compressors, developed by Dynaflo Inc.,” Schostek said. “The compressor is a key component of criti- cally needed medical ventilators that provide a constant source of air to stricken patients. With support from Dynaflo, we are working toward a goal of produc- ing 10,000 compressors a month.”
In 2016, Green Tokai invested nearly $8 million was later bought out. in buildings and equipment In Dayton, financial ser- in a Brookville expansion vices/debt collection com- that was then expected to pany CBCS notified the state create 57 new jobs. it is laying off 17 employees,
T hen in its 29th year, that company said in its own Green Tokai had 625 work- WARN Act notice. ers in Brookville and more The pandemic is clearly than 300 at a Maysville, Ky. taking a toll. Ohio’s unemplant. ployment rate was 5.5% in
The company is a maker of March, up from 4.1% perautomotive weather strips, cent in February, the state moldings and seals, born said Friday. of a joint venture between Ohio’s non-agricultural Ernie Green Industries and wage and salary employTokai Kogyo. Green’s share ment decreased 39,700 over the month, from a revised 5,599,100 in February to 5,559,400 in March 2020.
The number of work- ers unemployed in Ohio in March was 314,000, up 73,000 from 241,000 in February, the state said.
Springfield News-Sun Staff Writer Hasan Karim contributed to this story.