More than 400 employees at two recreational vehicle manufacturing plants in the Inland Empire will lose their jobs at year’s end as Forest River Manufacturing pulls its production stakes out of California.
The facilities, one in Hemet and the other in Rialto, employ 415 people, who were notified of the closures earlier this month.
In letters to the state’s Employment Development Department signed by general manager Jeff Burian, the company said the plant closures would be permanent and layoffs finalized by Dec. 13. Those job cuts include 239 people at 920 West Mayberry Ave. in Hemet and another 176 people at 255 S. Pepper Ave. in Rialto.
The company told the trade publication RV Business that it would maintain a service center in Hemet for its RV customers.
Doug Gaeddert, president of the RV Division, told RV Business that the company has a “strong commitment to the California retail market” and is converting one of two Hemet facilities into a service operation.
Forest River founder Peter Liegl and Gaeddert, both at the company’s Indiana headquarters, and plant managers in Rialto and Hemet, could not be reached for comment on Friday, Oct. 25.
The parking lot at the Rialto facility was largely empty on Friday, with roughly 40 parked cars in the front of the Pepper Avenue plant.
The trade publication said brands produced in the Inland Empire would shift to facilities in Indiana, Forest River’s home base. The manufacturer has plants throughout the Midwest, Georgia and West Coast, according to the company’s website.
Forest River RV, which makes pontoons, buses, cargo trailers and commercial trucks, is a unit of Forest River Inc., a division of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway company.
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