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Report: LM Wind Power to Cut 234 Jobs in Little Rock - Innovate Arkansas

Report: LM Wind Power to Cut 234 Jobs in Little Rock

By Arkansas Business Staff, 8/3/2012 7:36:57 AM

Danish windblade manufacturer LM Wind Power told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday that it will cut 234 jobs -- more than half its Little Rock workforce -- over the next few months.

In a story for its Friday newspaper, the Democrat-Gazette said the company will lay off 80 hourly employees, 14 salaried employees and 140 temporary workers.

In the article, the company attributed the layoffs to a decrease in demand for its products as Congress fails to renew a federal production tax credit that expires Dec. 31.

LM Wind Power, once known as LM Glasfiber, announced in July 2007 that it would put its $150 million North American headquarters at the Port of Little Rock. The plant makes fiberglass wind turbine blades. At one point, it projected employment in central Arkansas to reach 1,000 by 2012.

News about the LM layoffs comes the same week that another major Little Rock employer, Hawker Beechcraft of Wichita, Kan., told employees that it would lay off 170 people at its 247,500-SF operation at Adams Field. 

That company, which finishes out its line of private jets at four hangars at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, employs 450 people, according to Arkansas Business' annual list of the state's largest aerospace companies, last published in April. Hawker Beechcraft placed third on the list, which is ranked by number of employees.