Koyo Corporation of USA (a division of JTEKT, Japan) is laying off approximately 15% of its workforce at bearing manufacturing plants in Orangeburg and Blythewood, South Carolina; and Washington County, Tennessee.

A total of 125 or more positions have been targeted across the three facilities, tightly tied to the troubled auto industry.

Orangeburg and the Richland / Blythewood plant are sister operations; Orangeburg manufactures ball and roller bearings, while Blythewood produces wheel bearing hub assembly units for auto manufacturers in the U.S. The Washington County plant is a new facility for tapered roller bearings and includes a joint venture facility with Nakatetsu Incorporated.

Orangeburg employs nearly 500, and will see 80 positions cut. Blythewood employs 225 and will have 30 or more positions eliminated. The other layoffs will be at Washington County.

Prior to making these deeper cuts, Koyo spokesman Stephen Hudson said: "the company had already taken other actions to reduce labor-related costs such as elimination of temporary and contract workers, elimination of overtime, reduced work weeks and even voluntary unpaid time off by some employees, but those actions were not enough."

In early February, employees were given all of those options, including a buyout option, and told the next step would be forced layoffs.

Mr. Hudson indicated employees responded to the program options, noting the, "voluntary separation program was very successful. Over 90 per cent of Koyo's targeted reductions were met through its voluntary separation program."

Layoffs are a dramatic reversal for Koyo, which only a few months ago announced an aggressive expansion at Blythewood -- adding two lines to manufacture wheel bearing hub assembly units for new models being added to U.S. production by either BMW, Toyota, or Honda.

article: Koyo Plans Blythewood plant expansion
And the Washington County plants have only recently come online.

article: Koyo Building two bearing plants in Tennessee