DTNA to Temporarily Lay Off 2,000 Production Plant Staff
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Daimler Truck North America will lay off around 2,000 employees at five sites as the weak and uncertain freight market continues to take a toll on truck manufacturers.
Employees at production facilities operated by the parent company of Class 8 truck brands Freightliner and Western Star in Mount Holly and Gastonia, N.C.; Detroit; Portland, Ore.; and Saltillo, Mexico, will be laid off, a spokesman confirmed in a statement released to Transport Topics July 14.
“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. To align with current market conditions, we’ve made the tough decision to implement workforce reductions across several facilities,” DTNA said.
Each affected site will experience different impacts based on local business needs, the unit of Germany’s Daimler Truck said.
“We remain optimistic that market conditions will improve, enabling us to reassess operational needs and potentially reinstate affected roles,” it said.
The Portland and Mount Holly layoffs will take place on July 18, while Gastonia employees will be laid off on July 25 and Detroit plant staff on Sept. 18, the spokesman said in an update July 15.
DTNA declined to provide details on how many jobs would be affected at each site, but Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act reports filed with the North Carolina Department of Commerce indicate 573 will be at Mount Holly and Gastonia, as previously reported by The Charlotte Observer.
The most up-to-date WARN notice filings for Michigan and Oregon did not have any record of the DTNA layoffs.
A majority of the head count reductions across the five sites are production-related positions, the spokesman told TT, adding: “We hope to recall employees as soon as the market order activity picks back up.”
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DTNA currently has about 28,000 employees across North America. The spokesman declined to say how many were at each of the sites affected by the layoffs.
Mount Holly produces Freightliner’s medium-duty models. The Gastonia facility carries out stamping, metal fabrication and sub-assembly of cab and chassis parts. The Detroit Manufacturing Plant in Redford Township, Mich., is the home of DTNA’s Detroit Diesel engine division.
In December, DTNA said more than 400 jobs were being added at the Detroit plant as part of a $285 million capital investment program. The plant had 2,000 employees at the time, according to DTNA.
The Portland plant builds Freightliner’s eCascadia and eM2 battery-electric trucks as well as Western Star’s X-Series lineup. The Saltillo plant, which opened in 2009, focuses on production of the Freightliner Cascadia, North America’s best-selling Class 8 on-highway tractor.
Portland, Ore.-based DTNA is the third truck maker to announce a head count reduction across North American production facilities in recent months.
Volvo Group axed 1,000 positions across its Volvo Truck North America and Mack Trucks divisions in the spring.
Traton Group’s International Motors unit cut 900 jobs at its heavy-duty truck manufacturing plant in Escobedo, Mexico, shelving the second shift at the assembly facility.
Both of DTNA’s peers blamed demand weakness for the job cuts.
DTNA’s parent company cut its 2025 global and North American truck sales guidance in May as a result of the weak U.S. freight market and trade policy uncertainty.
DTNA's Phoenix parts distribution center, which will be relocated to Las Vegas in 2026. (Daimler Truck)
Globally, Daimler Truck expects to sell between 430,000 and 460,000 trucks and buses in 2025, compared with prior expectations in a 460,000-480,000 range, it said May 13.
In North America, heavy-duty Class 8 sales are expected to be in a range of 260,000 to 290,000 vehicles, compared with previous expectations in a 280,000-320,000 trucks range, it added.
DTNA is forecast to sell 155,000 to 175,000 trucks in 2025 across all classes, down from a 180,000 to 200,000 range previously, with Daimler Truck citing the Trump administration’s decision to introduce a variety of tariffs and the reciprocal actions of its peers.
No job cuts had been implemented because of the tariffs, DTNA CEO John O’Leary told reporters during a media roundtable at the parent company’s Capital Market Day 2025 at the Cleveland Truck Plant on July 8.
O'Leary. (Daimler Truck North America)
However, O’Leary said some shifts had been trimmed due to shutdown days and weeks. Cleveland Truck Plant is Freightliner’s largest U.S. manufacturing plant.
The United Auto Workers, 7,400 of whose members inked a four-year labor contract with DTNA in May 2024, was not immediately available for comment on the layoffs.
The deal covers unionized staff at Cleveland, Mount Holly and Gastonia.
DTNA truck and bus sales fell 20% year over year to 38,580 units in the second quarter of 2025 from the year-ago period’s 48,246 total.
North American Class 8 truck orders in June slumped 36% year over year to 9,400 units and dived 28.8% from the 13,200 vehicles reported for May, according to ACT Research.
Sales and orders have failed to rebound as the freight market weakness has become ever more elongated, quashing hopes expressed at the start of the calendar year.
The Cleveland Truck Plant was chosen as the site for the CMD because of optimism about the prospects for North America, Daimler Truck CEO Karin Radstrom told analysts and bankers, particularly in relation to the company’s other core market — Europe.
Radstrom. (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg)
“[There’s] a lot more doubt about the economy, a lot more doubt about the pre-buy, a lot more doubt about everything,” she said, adding: “Markets are very uncertain and volatile.”
Daimler Truck announced plans to ax around 5,000 jobs in Germany in the hours preceding the CMD. The company also plans to double the size of its defense business by 2030 as military spending increases globally.
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The German job cuts are part of a “Stronger 2030” strategic overhaul that includes a renewed focus on diesel powertrains.
One of the five pillars of the overhaul is termed “transform at the speed of right” and involves downshifting Daimler Truck’s battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell truck development while accelerating diesel powertrain investment.
“With market maturity for zero-emissions vehicles losing momentum in North America, we’ve reshaped our capital allocation strategy to refocus on further developing our internal combustion technology,” DTNA’s O’Leary said during a speech at the event.
