Donnelly Corp. is cutting 225 jobs worldwide, with office workers taking the brunt of the hit.
The injection molder and mirror maker announced the restructuring July 9, saying it would reduce its nonmanufacturing work force by 100 in North America and by 50 in Europe.
In addition, it is outsourcing some component manufacturing in Germany, which will result in a drop of about 75 production jobs there.
The Holland, Mich.-based manufacturer had held off on the job cuts for as long as possible, but with no quick recovery in the auto industry in view, management believed it had to move now, said Donnelly spokeswoman Beverly Snyder.
The cut impacts about 3.5 percent of its overall global work force of 6,400 and 10 percent of its North American non-manufacturing base, both salaried and hourly positions.
Some workers with a manufacturing background will be offered a chance to transfer back into production, she said. Most will not have that option.
The firm reorganized its corporate structure in February into two main operating groups: electronic systems and exterior systems. As that shift took place, it was apparent there were some redundancies in jobs, Snyder said.
The cuts taking place this month reflect that overlap, which also is a response to continued pricing pressure from automakers, she said. In addition, car and truck production has not rebounded as quickly as management had hoped, providing additional stress and leaving few choices for the supplier's efforts to streamline costs.
``We were hoping some of the more positive forecasts from earlier this year [for improved production] would come to pass, but it hasn't,'' Snyder said.
Donnelly expects to wrap up all of its restructuring during the third quarter of this year.
