Grove Worldwide has returned to a full manufacturing schedule but laid off 260 employees.
The company cut schedules on 14 August, as reported last month, but returned to full time working on 11 September. The redundancies mean that Grove will not now have to shut down production of Manlift aerial work platforms from 18 November to 1 January.
However, most areas of the shop at Shady Grove, Pennsylvania will operate on a two shift rather than three shift schedule, the company said.
Chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Bust has explained the decision to sell the Blue Ridge Summit training centre in the Mountains near Grove’s Shady Grove headquarters.
“This facility was originally instituted to serve as a place to host large group visits by distributors and potential customers in a setting which included lodging and dining facilities and also served as our training centre. As the nature of doing business has changed, visitations by large groups and international delegations have diminished significantly in the past several years. More training is being done at customer field locations to save Grove customers’ time and expense. We have existing space at Shady Grove for our training operations and, with our new training group formed earlier this year, we can effect significant cost savings, efficiencies and better training capabilities by the sale of the centre, getting out of the hotel and restaurant business and moving training to Shady Grove.”
