Car brake manufacturer in Kentucky to close, lay off 450 by end of year
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Akebono to close Elizabethtown brake plant, lay off 450 workers by year-end.
- Company cites decline in U.S. business and implements permanent workforce reduction.
- Closure follows 2023 decision to consolidate U.S. sites and signals supply shifts.
A car parts plant in Elizabethtown is closing and its remaining 450 employees are being laid off.
Akebono Brake Corp., a car brake maker based in Japan with an American headquarters in Michigan, told the Kentucky Career Center Oct. 3 it was implementing a permanent workforce reduction starting Dec. 5 and lasting through year’s end until the plant’s closure.
“The workforce reduction/layoffs are the result of a decline in Akebono’s U.S. Business and are expected to be permanent,” said Plant Manager Chris Cooper in the letter, as is required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN Act.
The company first shared its closure plans in October 2023 after 35 years of operating in Hardin County, which is about 90 minutes west of Lexington.
Akebono Brake Industry Co. President and CEO Yasuhiro Miyaji told the company’s board of directors at the time it had “resolved to reduce the business of its U.S. subsidiary” by closing one of two manufacturing sites, the News-Enterprise reported. In 2019, the plan to shift to a one-plant U.S. presence was adopted and around the end of that year, the company had closed its plants in Tennessee and in South Carolina.
According to its website, Akebono also operates a brake production plant in Glasgow, Kentucky.
The phased-out closure and layoff plan has allowed the community to aid workers in finding another similar job nearby or obtaining additional training to make a career switch, said Elizabethtown-Hardin County Industrial Foundation President and COO Rick Games when Akebono said it was pulling out of the city.
The majority of impacted Elizabethtown employees are production associates and production group leaders, according to the letter. The plant’s employees are not represented by a union and no bumping rights exist.
Once all 450 of the plant’s employees are laid off permanently, the plant in Elizabethtown at 300 Ring Road will close.
It’s not clear at peak production how many employees worked at the plant, but Akebono’s website does indicate the company has approximately 5,350 employees.
The human resources coordinator listed on the letter sent to the state last week by Akebono was not immediately available for additional comment.
Last month, Akebono laid off more than 50 of its employees from an engineering center in Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press. The “mass layoff” there began Oct. 1 and ends Dec. 1 impacting engineering jobs, lab techs, analysts and designers.
The producer of advanced car brakes and noise reduction technology has customers in the likes of Japanese carmakers Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi along with Ford and GM, according to its website.
In 2023, motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts were Kentucky’s top export products, totaling approximately $5.4 billion in sales, according to state data from the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.
Auto-related news has been pouring out of Elizabethtown this summer. The city is also home to the still-under-construction BlueOval SK, a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and South Korean SK On, where electric vehicle batteries are being manufactured.
On Sept. 24, employees alleged in a class-action lawsuit they haven’t been fairly compensated for required work activities they do before and after their scheduled shifts.
The complaint was filed in Michigan roughly one month after long-awaited commercial production of batteries began at the plant and workers voted to unionize with the United Auto Workers.
That plant is just outside Elizabethtown in Glendale. According to 2023 estimates from a study commissioned by the Hardin County Chamber of Commerce, once complete, the entire plant is anticipated to be the largest EV battery plant in the world.
.JPG)