OKC Canoo workers face furloughs ahead of holiday season
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Several workers at the Canoo plant in Oklahoma City received a letter Thursday telling them they were furloughed for the next three months without pay or health insurance.
"All we want to do is to go work for a start-up company, help make it successful, and then (we) turn around and get dumped on," said one worker who received the furlough letter Thursday.
That worker wanted to remain anonymous as he didn't want to break his contract but felt the story needed to be told.
As of the Friday interview, he was trying for unemployment.
"It irritated me because they just had a town hall meeting or something in September where they said they are doing good and they have plans to get everything up and running," said the worker. "I've talked to people that have spent money on Christmas gifts for the kids and then two months before Christmas, it was a surprise that we all got walked out."
"Some of the upper management were affected, some of the engineers but it was mainly manufacturing personnel. I'd say around 80% to 85% of them," said the worker.
News 4 reached out to Canoo around 9 a.m. Friday to confirm the number of workers furloughed. Around 4:30 p.m. the company released a statement and said that it was "23% of factory workers."
The company has not had a positive financial time in the past year. The stock as of November 1 was at one of the lowest points it has been in the past year.
Oklahoma put out a deal with Canoo a year or so ago that they would receive over $100 million in tax incentives as they continued to show growth over the next decade.
In August of last year, the CEO, Tony Aquila, told The Oklahoman in their report on the Canoo plant nearing EV production, "We are delighted to have finalized these agreements which enable Canoo to hire more than 1,300 Oklahomans and fulfill the vision of its state and tribal leaders to bring new industry to the state."
However, according to financial filings, the company lost around $300 million in revenue for 2023. It gained in that same year around $800,000. The filings also showed that a company owned by Aquila was allegedly reimbursed for private jet trips to the tune of $1.7 million from Canoo.
"Yet cuts the workforce of his manufacturing facility, letting down a lot of people that had faith in the company and we feel like we've gotten shafted," said the worker.
Canoo has made the difficult decision to temporarily reduce our workforce in Oklahoma City by furloughing 23% of our factory workers for a period of twelve weeks as part of a broader realignment of our North American operations. This reduction is a continuation of our efforts to consolidate our U. S. workforce which includes redistributing some of our tenured and skilled employees to our OKC and Texas facilities as part of our comprehensive plan and supply chain harmonization to prepare the company for the next phase of growth. We are committed to supporting our 30 impacted workers in OKC during this challenging time and will provide necessary resourc4es to assist them.
Spokesperson for Canoo
News 4 sent several questions to an email provided by a manufacturing director at the Oklahoma City plant but didn't hear back as of Friday.