Carrier beings 600 layoffs next month

The Carrier plant in Indianapolis that Donald Trump mentioned frequently on the campaign trail and famously returned to during the transition is preparing to lay off 600 manufacturing workers next month, according to CNBC’s Scott Cohn, who observes that the “deal” Trump and then-Gov. Mike Pence struck to save the plant “is not living up to the hype.”

The production work is shutting down, not because there isn’t demand for the products but because the company has determined that it is more profitable to do the work in Mexico.

Per the terms of the deal, Carrier will continue to employ slightly more than 1,000 people at the location. But of those, only 700 are the manufacturing jobs the argument was about — “the rest are engineering and technical jobs that were never scheduled to be cut.” In exchange, Carrier is getting $7 million in state incentives, which it is pairing with $9 million of its own money to make a $16 million investment in the facility. Trump characterized that investment as being about creating jobs, but “United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told CNBC in December that the money would go toward more automation in the factory and ultimately would result in fewer jobs.”