MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Local union president Lester Hancock (right), talking with Mark Montgomery, said the layoffs were not a surprise.

Citing a weak truck market and soft economy, Volvo Trucks North America announced it would slice employment at its Dublin plant by more than a third and reduce production at the facility to one shift.

The 1,100 people who will lose their jobs beginning the week of May 12 represent a significant increase from the number the company expected to shed when it first announced layoffs late last year. At that time, Volvo spokesman Jim McNamara said up to 650 people would be laid off at the end of January.

Those layoffs were postponed, however, because of a more than six-week-long strike at the plant. The strike stopped production for more than three weeks and left some truck orders unfilled.

As a result, McNamara said, workers returned to the plant March 24 facing "a temporarily higher build rate."

"Once we catch up with the lost production, we'll take the line rate back down to a more sustainable level and that's when there will be layoffs," he noted.

Asked why Volvo had decided to trim 450 more jobs than were anticipated four months ago, McNamara said "both the economy and the market situation have changed. The average national price for diesel is over $4 a gallon and that has a significant impact on customers."

This year was never anticipated to be a blockbuster one for truck sales anyway.

"As expected, demand in North America remains low, reflecting the weakening economy," reads Volvo's 2007 Report on Operations. "This has resulted in lower profitability in the transport industry along with a relatively high level of inventories of new trucks at the dealers.

"Forecasting the market is difficult," the report continues, "but current expectations are a demand for trucks in 2008 on the same level as in 2007."

And 2007 was hardly a banner year.

Hit hard by new emissions standards that raised truck prices and caused customers to pre-buy trucks in 2006, Volvo Trucks has said it suffered a 46 percent decline in net sales in North America from 2006 to 2007.

Well aware of the likelihood of another bad year, Lester Hancock, president of United Auto Workers Local 2069, said the layoffs do not come as a shock.

"It's not good news -- it's never good news whenever somebody loses a job," Hancock said. But "it's the whole trucking industry and the shape the economy is in [and] we regret it, but it's not surprising to us."

"We have no control over diesel prices and gas prices," he added. "And that's what makes our wheels turn."

Hancock said the union isn't yet sure who will be affected by the layoffs.

But regardless, the financial stress on those who lose their jobs will likely be significant, particularly since many spent all of February and most of March on strike.

Throughout the UAW Local 2069's strike, union members received $200 a week in strike pay. And by the sixth week of picketing, several workers said it had become difficult to support their families.

The average wage at the plant is $22 to $23 an hour.

McNamara said in coming weeks Volvo will hold meetings with employees to explain the benefits they're entitled to receive while laid off.

In addition to any unemployment benefits, union members can receive $250 a week in supplemental unemployment benefits, Hancock said.

The amount of time members receive supplemental benefits depends on their years of service at the plant.

For some plant workers, it will not be the first time they've weathered a layoff.

In November 2006, Volvo announced it would cut 1,075 of its then 3,170 jobs in the early part of 2007. That number was later reduced to about 900, and in the months following the company's announcement, various state and local agencies, including the New River/Mount Rogers Workforce Investment Board and New River Community College, scrambled to provide support services and programs to those affected.

In August and October, 580 workers were recalled to the plant. Many of them are likely to face layoffs again now.