Columbus-based retail company L Brands Inc. said it intends to hire 1,000 additional seasonal workers for its Kettering customer care center operation, welcome news in a region that has shed thousands of jobs since March, when the statewide COVID-19 pandemic-related shut downs went into effect.
The L Brands customer care center at 5959 Bigger Road in Kettering has operated for more than 25 years, although it has been mostly empty in recent months, with most workers employed remotely. This latest hiring push is in anticipation of what the company hopes will be stronger business tied to the Christmas shopping season.
Mark Schwieterman, Kettering city manager, said L Brands has been a “great corporate community partner, and they have been for years.”
“We’re always very pleased they’re hiring folks out there at this site,” the city manager said Tuesday.
On the same day, however, Concord Hospitality Enterprises warned Ohio government that its Dayton Marriott at the University of Dayton will lay off 117 workers next month.
“This layoff is due to the significant financial impact on the travel and tourism industry caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,” Crystal Thrasher, director of human resources for Concord, said in a letter to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. “All affected employees are currently being notified. Bumping rights do not exist.”
In 2017, the hotel and its owner, the University of Dayton, completed a $23 million renovation of its 399 rooms, restaurant and conference room.
Also: It appears that automotive glass manufacturer Fuyao Glass America in Moraine has nearly 600 fewer jobs at its Kettering Boulevard plant than it did at or near its peak last year.
Fuyao’s Moraine operation has 1,722 employees, and is still trying to fill about 400 job openings to meet production demand, plant leaders said Tuesday.
Before the pandemic, Fuyao leaders had pointed with pride to the plant’s approximately 2,300 workers. That number is nearly 600 workers higher than today’s workforce, however.
Fuyao’s local plant was largely idled, along with most of the North American auto industry it serves, from mid-March to late May this year.
“We gradually resumed operations after we were advised FGA was considered an ‘essential business’ and as our customers resumed their production in June,” Leslie O’Hara, Fuyao’s assistant human resources director, said.
Moraine isn’t alone in job losses. Fuyao Glass Industry Group, the corporate parent of Fuyao Glass America, has laid off more than 2,200 workers across the world this year, the company acknowledged in an English translation of a recent mid-year corporate report.
“The number of employees of the company was 24,460, representing a decrease of 2,267 employees as compared with that at the end of 2019,” the company said in its Interim Results report, which was first published at the end of June.
However, the report did not provide a breakdown of where those affected workers had been located.
“We are hiring and short almost 400 people at FGA,” Jeff Liu, Fuyao Glass America’s chief executive, said in a brief email Tuesday. He referred further questions to O’Hara.
Signs along Kettering Boulevard outside the Fuyao plant encourage those interested to apply for openings.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services hasn’t posted a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act) notice from Fuyao. Generally, companies of a certain size are required to advise Ohio government of plans to lay off 50 or more people within a 30-day period.
The Dayton area today is suffering its worst economy since the Great Recession of 2007-2008, and jobs losses recently have easily exceeded that recession’s toll.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
As of last week, Montgomery County saw 1,083 residents file first-time applications for unemployment insurance benefits, and that was on top of 17,577 continuing claims for benefits.
Employment has declined 8% across the region’s metropolitan statistical area in the past year — from June 2019 to June 2020 — according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
“Locally we have lost as many jobs in the last four months than we did in a three-year period of the Great Recession,” Richard Stock, director of the University of Dayton Business Research Center, told the Dayton Daily News earlier this month.
Job win:
L Brands Inc.: Plans to hire 1,000 in Kettering for seasonal positions.
TO APPLY: Begin at https://lbrands.avature.net/BestPlacetoWork/Register?folderId=31065
Job losses:
The Dayton Marriott at the University of Dayton: Will lay off 117 workers Sept. 18.
Fuyao Glass America: Has lost nearly 600 jobs from 2019. However, the company is trying to fill 400 openings. Fuyao Glass Industry Group, the corporate parent of Fuyao Glass America, has laid off more than 2,200 workers across the world this year.
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