One of the world’s largest truck manufacturers is shifting production to the Carolinas, closing a longtime West Coast factory and moving hundreds of manufacturing jobs to its facilities in North and South Carolina.
Daimler Truck North America announced it will shut down its truck manufacturing plant in Portland by the end of the year as part of a plan to streamline production and better align its manufacturing network. They said they’ll be relocated to existing facilities in North and South Carolina, where it already operates five assembly plants. Daimler also has three assembly facilities in Mexico.
“Our commitment to Portland remains strong,” the company said in an official statement. “Portland will continue to serve as DTNA’s North American headquarters and a key center for engineering, innovation, product development, testing, and validation.”
The closure will affect approximately 375 employees in Portland. However, the company said it will continue building prototype trucks there for testing and engineering purposes.
The announcement comes only weeks after Daimler opened a new $40 million engineering hub in Portland, underscoring that the company will maintain an engineering presence even as manufacturing moves east.
Daimler, the world’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturer, produces about 800 trucks each day across its North American operations.
The decision represents another economic boost for the manufacturing sector across the Carolinas, which continue attracting major manufacturing investments thanks to their skilled workforce, transportation infrastructure and growing industrial base.
Meanwhile, the move is another setback for Portland’s manufacturing sector. The company has been headquartered there since the early 1980s, with truck production on Swan Island dating back to the 1940s. Daimler still employs more than 3,000 people in the Portland region, primarily in engineering and other operations.
