At the Owens Corning composites plant in Amarillo, Texas, workers dismissed during a previous layoff have been rehired. The company was hit hard by the economic crisis and was obliged to let go more t…
At the Owens Corning composites plant in Amarillo, Texas, workers dismissed during a previous layoff have been rehired. The company was hit hard by the economic crisis and was obliged to let go more than 250 workers. The facility, one of largest glass-melting plants in the world, has rehired workers as it works in order to meet the growing need for Owens Corning“s products around the globe. “We have continued to restart capacity to meet increased demand for the products that that plant manufactures and supplies,” Owens Corning spokeswoman Kerry Desberg said. “We now have about 490 employees at the plant, and we will be hiring approximately an additional 20 new employees in the next few months.” The plant makes composite materials used to reinforce plastic structures, and makes more than 300 products, melts glass in two brick furnaces that bubble with white-hot liquid. The glass essentially is melted sand mixed with other ingredients that make higher-quality glass or enhance the glass-melting process. “Those (furloughs) happened over the course of 2009, and gradually, we“ve been gradually bringing people back,” Desberg said. “We have brought back everybody who had been furloughed that was available to come back.” The company is now gradually building its work force back to the 2008 figure of 550 employees. “These capacity increases are focused on meeting demand and ensuring the profitable success of our customers and our company,” Desberg said. “Demand increases are currently driven in large part by energy and infrastructure spending and include markets like wind energy and oil, and which are currently straining capacity for some products in the market,” adding that all the factory“s furnaces are operating. President and CEO of the Amarillo Economic Development Corp., Buzz David, said Owens Corning makes raw materials that other manufacturers use to make their products, and that Owens Corning“s rehirings are linked to the company“s overall expansion plans. “I think you look at that as kind of an early indicator of the overall economy improving. That means other industries are starting to make more of their goods and products again because they need that raw material,” he said. “Basic industries seem to be getting back to work that support other industry – not just the local area – but support things around the country and the world.”