Nearly 600 manufacturing Daimler Truck North America employees are temporarily losing their jobs in the Charlotte, North Carolina, region.

Daimler Truck North America is temporarily laying off 573 workers update in Gaston County, according to a N.C. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act report filed Friday with the North Carolina Department of Commerce. The “mass layoffs” will be effective Friday at the Custom Truck Services facility 1803 Main St. and the manufacturing plant at 1800 N. Main St., according to the report.

In all 546 employees will be temporarily laid off in Mount Holly, North Carolina, with 27 affected at Daimler’s components and logistics site in Gastonia, North Carolina, Daimler Truck North America spokesman Andrew Johnson told The Charlotte Observer on Monday. Gastonia Components and Logistics is at 1400 Tulip Drive.

“As we navigate a challenging economic environment, we’ve seen a notable slowdown in new truck orders, particularly in our medium-duty, on-highway, and electric vehicle segments,” Johnson said.

The layoffs are “due to a sustained reduction in orders and diminished build rate,” Daimler Truck North Carolina Human Resources Manager Steve Griffin said in the company’s WARN report letter to the state. The job cuts are expected to be temporary but for an unknown duration, Griffin said.

Employees affected will receive a payment at each employee’s regular pay rate for the period between Friday and Sept. 9, the report states.

The majority of jobs affected are truck assemblers, as well as material handlers, office supervisors, technicians and painters.

There are about 1,400 employees at Daimler’s Mount Holly truck manufacturing, Johnson said. The company has approximately 6,500 employees across North Carolina.

“To align with current market conditions, we’ve made the tough decision to implement workforce reductions across several facilities.”

In all 2,000 employees at five sites — including Mount Holly and Gastonia — will be impacted by the temporary layoffs. Other affected locations are in Detroit; Portland, Oregon; and Saltillo, Mexico. “Each site will experience different impacts based on local business needs,” Johnson said.

More about Daimler Truck North America

Daimler Truck North America designs, engineers, manufactures and markets medium- and heavy-duty trucks, school buses, vehicle chassis and their associated technologies and components under several brands. Some of them are Freightliner, Western Star and Thomas Built Buses.

The Mount Holly plant makes medium-duty Freightliner trucks, according to Daimler. The Gastonia Components and Logistics facility provides stamping, metal fabrication and sub-assembly of cab and chassis parts.

Daimler has other plants in the Charlotte region, according to Daimler’s website:

—Daimler Truck Remarketing Corp., 2477 Deerfield Road, Fort Mill, S.C.

—Cleveland Truck Manufacturing Plant, 11550 Statesville Blvd., Cleveland, N.C.

Back in 2016, the company cut more than 900 jobs in response to “a diminished build rate,” according to The Charlotte Observer archives. Around the same time, Daimler also temporarily laid off about 700 employees at its Mount Holly facility, and about 550 at its Cleveland plant.

The North America business is a subsidiary of Germany-based Daimler Truck Holding AG. It operates 40 production sites with more than 100,000 employees.

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