By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
The most recent job reductions at Norandal USA’s Salisbury plant will affect nine salaried employees.
Five of the salary positions ended this week. The other four salaried employees will work until March 31, 2009.
Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp., based in Franklin, Tenn., announced in a press release Thursday that it would be laying off 383 employees across its operations, including some 96 layoffs at its “downstream” foil-producing plants, which include the longstanding Salisbury operation on Jake Alexander Boulevard near Old Concord Road.
Other layoffs would come in the “upstream” primary metals business, with some of the reductions going into 2009, the company said.
Most of the workforce reductions at the Norandal plant in Salisbury had occurred previously. Most recently, the plant laid off 22 hourly employees in September.
Tom Rugg, human resources manager for the Salisbury plant, said it will continue to operate with 132 “demand” positions, which are paid hourly. As of now, 137 employees fill those 132 positions because of some leaves of absences, Rugg said.
The loss of the five salaried employees this week leaves the Salisbury operation with 25 salaried positions. That number will fall to 21 after March 31, 2009.
So by April of next year, the Salisbury operation will have a total of 153 employees, down from 240 in 2007.
Rugg said company officials think the company now has the right mix and number of employees to be profitable and produce some 3.7 million pounds of light-gauge and heavy-gauge rolled aluminum per month. The rolls of aluminum are used in heating and air conditioning, packaging and printing applications.
As one way to save money among the salaried staff, the parent company has been centralizing accounting and procurement jobs.