WTHR |Honda could take advantage of layoffs

Honda could take advantage of layoffs

Chris Proffitt/Eyewitness News

Indianapolis - Indiana has lost thousands of auto industry jobs over the past few years.  It's a trained workforce that will prove valuable to Honda as it searches for 2,000 workers.

While Honda announces it's new plant coming to Indiana, Anderson's Guide corporation announces more lay-offs. Another 180 workers will be losing their jobs by December. It's a trend among Detroit's big three: laying-off workers and closing plants in Indiana and the rest of the nation as their share of the automobile market shrinks.

Judy Ginder grew up in a GM family. Like a lot of automotive workers from Anderson, Kokomo, Indianapolis and New Castle she's been laid-off from Guide corporation for a year. Workers are now contemplating what was once unthinkable, relying on a foreign automaker like Honda for a living.

"Times are changing. So if they are the ones that will pay my bills, then I'll have to go somewhere where I can pay my bills," said Ginder.

Former automotive workers in cities like Anderson, which was built largely by GM, say Honda would be smart to employ the cities idle production talent pool as it searches for skilled workers. In fact, automotive analysts say it's Indiana's automotive workforce that helped land Honda.

Stephen Bristow is a GM retiree. He says you've got to go where the jobs are. He told Eyewitness News, "This is a GM town but if Honda and Toyota are going to employ American workers and build cars in America, then they should draw on some of the best resources they've got."

Ironically, the foreign competition that helped put Indiana automotive workers out of work, may be their next employer.