GM Will Close Lordstown Plant In 2019: Reports

LORDSTOWN, OH — General Motors plans to close its Lordstown plant in 2019, according to reports. The plant once employed nearly 4,500 people, but over the past two years that number has atrophied.

The plant is reportedly scheduled to close on March 1, 2019, according to WFMJ. Employees were told of the scheduled closure on Monday morning.

Over the summer, a large number of Lordstown employees were offered an early buyout as incentive to retire early. It now seems that offer was a foreboding omen of things to come. Approximately 1,600 employees remain at the plant.

The shuttering of Lordstown is part of a larger reduction plan being executed by General Motors. The Associated Press said the company may cut some 14,700 jobs in North America.

In late June, the company said that trade tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump could create a "smaller GM."

“The overbroad and steep application of import tariffs on our trading partners risks isolating U.S. businesses like GM from the global market that helps to preserve and grow our strength here at home,” the company said in a press release published in Reuters.

GM currently employs about 110,000 people in the U.S.

(For more news like this, find your local Patch here. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. And like Patch on Facebook!)

(Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

Caption: Chevrolet Cobalts go through the assembly line at the General Motors Lordstown Complex August 21, 2008 in Warren, Ohio. Rick Wagoner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors Corporation, was at he plant today to announce that GM will invest more than $500 million to build the Chevy Cruze, an all-new global compact car, at the Lordstown Complex. The Cruze will be officially unveiled at the upcoming Paris Motor Show.