by Fred Gough ~ Hutch Post

Siemens is announcing that it will lay off 615 employees in their wind turbine business, including removal of all temp workers at the wind turbine plant in Hutchinson and elimination of 146 full time staff according to a news release. The plant, which has been open for 18 months, is facing an uncertain future after questions arose over the elimination of the wind production tax credits that lured Siemens to the US in the first place.

The layoffs also include the wind turbine blade plant in Ft. Madison, Iowa and other facilities in Florida. It did not say how many of those were at the nacelle plant. Siemens released the following statement.

“These decisions are never easy and Siemens understands the impact this has on employees and the Hutchinson community. Unfortunately, this business decision was necessary to respond to market conditions that are beyond our control and affecting the entire U.S. wind power industry.

We have worked very hard over the past 10 months to address the uncertainties, but this has unfortunate consequences on employment in this segment of the power industry. We must now adjust our wind power operations to reflect the current and projected business volume.

The realignment will affect approximately 615 employees overall in Iowa, Kansas and Florida. We remain committed to maintaining our U.S. factories and will continue to support the U.S. industry as well as export wind turbine components to markets across the Americas.”

The Hutchinson plant will keep 152 full-time employees.