Mercury Marine cutting 300 jobs at Fond du Lac headquarters

FOND DU LAC, Wis. (WBAY) – Mercury Marine announced it’s cutting 300 jobs at its global headquarters in Fond du Lac.

The company tells Action 2 News the job cuts are taking place now and will continue through July.

“These actions were taken due to softening of consumer demand in some of our markets,” Lee Gordon, vice president of corporate communications, wrote in a statement.

Gordon confirmed the authenticity of an office memo obtained by Action 2 News that identified “lowest seniority employees” who would start a long-term layoff on July 26. The memo sent from Human Resources on Thursday said the company was laying off 252 employees in Plant 15 indefinitely.

Mercury Marine blamed the softening demand on high interest rates and reduced production by boatbuilders that Mercury works with. Gordon listed Alumacraft and its owner, BRP, and Tracker Marine, to name a few. Since March, BRP permanently eliminated 298 jobs in Sturtevant, Wis., giving the workers pay in lieu of notice. Alumacraft made two rounds of layoffs at a Minnesota plant in the past year, the latest one last month, cutting its workforce at that plant in half.

“Mercury Marine’s industry-leading products continue to gain market share around the world but at this time this is not sufficient to fully offset the overall market headwinds,” Gordon said.

The company is also making adjustments at its other operations in Wisconsin; in St. Cloud, Fla.; and in Juarez, Mexico.

The Fond du Lac headquarters employs more than 500 full-time workers. Gordon says it will remain “one of the largest employers in the Fox Valley” and contributes $5 billion to the Fond du Lac-area economy every year.

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