President Donald Trump proclaimed while visiting a Boeing plant in South Carolina in February that he was there “to celebrate jobs.”
“Jobs is one of the primary reasons I’m standing here today as your president and I will never, ever disappoint you” he told the crowd in North Charleston that day. “Believe me, I will not disappoint you.”
On Thursday, Boeing confirmed that it would be laying off workers at the very plant where Trump had spoken so reassuringly five months ago. The aerospace company told CNNMoney that about 200 jobs at its facilities in South Carolina would be cut.
On the campaign trail and as president, Trump had made expansive promises about creating jobs in America. But thus far, many of these pledges appear to be falling flat.
Carrier announced Thursday that it would be laying off hundreds of workers at a furnace plant in Indiana this year — mere months after making a deal with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to keep workers in the state.
“The jobs are still leaving,” Robert James, president of a local steelworkers union, told CNBC of the Carrier layoffs. “Nothing has stopped.”
Ford announced this week that it would be moving the production of its Focus compact car to China instead of Mexico. The news came after Trump celebrated bringing those auto jobs back to the United States.
As for Boeing, the company had announced in December that it was planning to slash jobs company-wide in 2017 because of stiff market competition and falling demand for new airplanes. Over the past 12 months, Boeing has cut more than 13,000 jobs ― roughly a 9 percent reduction of its workforce, the Post and Courier reported this week.
Yet two months after Boeing’s announcement about its impending workforce cuts, Trump boasted at the company’s North Charleston plant that his administration would fight for workers.
“We are going to fight for our jobs, we are going to fight for our families and we are going to fight to get more jobs and better-paying jobs for the loyal citizens of our country,” Trump said that day. “Believe me.”
Boeing’s South Carolina operations had already been at its lowest employment levels in over three years even before the layoffs were announced this week, according to the Post and Courier.
The paper, quoting a Thursday memo to Boeing employees in the state, said there may be even more cuts to come.
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