Caterpillar closing two manufacturing plants

178 Caterpillar is closing its factories in Aurora Illinois and at Gosselies in Belgium, with the loss of around 3,000 jobs in all. The Aurora facility makes wheeled loaders, with production being switched over to facilities at Decatur, also in Illinois, as well as North Little Rock in Arkansas. This will result in the loss of 800 jobs at the Aurora plant although there will be more personnel required at the Decatur and North Little Rock facilities that will offset the losses

Meanwhile the firm says that the closure of the Gosselies site will impact on some 2,000 employees. The firm first announced that it was considering allocating production at the Belgian facility to other manufacturing plants in September 2016. However the company has now made the formal decision to close the facility, so production of its products on the site will be gradually phased out. All production is expected to cease by mid-year 2017. The other operations and functions on the Gosselies site are expected to be gradually ramped down until the end of 2017.

Caterpillar Belgium has agreed to sell the site to the Region of Wallonia. Ownership of the facility will switch to the firm Sogepa, which is an investment company of the Region. In order to support reconversion of the site, Caterpillar agreed to sell the site plus some of the installations and assets for a symbolic euro. The sale is to be effective on 30th June 2018.