FRANKLIN, Ohio — Faurecia Clean Mobility, part of automotive supplier Forvia, will close its plant on Commerce Center Drive in Franklin, laying off 180 employees, according to a WARN notice filed with the state of Ohio.
The layoffs are set to unfold in five phases starting Jan. 8, according to the notice, which was filed Nov. 6 and appears in Ohio’s WARN listings for Franklin in Warren County. WARN — the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — requires large employers to give advance notice of plant closings and mass layoffs.
The Franklin facility makes clean-mobility components — exhaust and emissions systems — for automakers. Its closure removes one of the larger manufacturing employers from the Franklin area, a Warren County community along the I-75 corridor between Dayton and Cincinnati where auto suppliers cluster.
For the 180 workers, the phased schedule means separations will stretch beyond the first January date rather than arriving all at once. Employees affected by WARN-covered closings are typically connected with OhioMeansJobs centers for job-search help, retraining information and unemployment filing.
The notice does not state a reason for the closure. Forvia, formed from Faurecia’s combination with Hella, has been reshaping its North American footprint as automakers adjust production plans, but the company has not publicly detailed the Franklin decision beyond the filing.
Franklin and Warren County officials have not yet announced a response plan, but plant closings of this size typically bring a rapid-response visit from state and county workforce staff, who meet with the employer and workers to line up services before the first separation date. The five-phase schedule gives that process time to reach each group of workers before their last day.
The I-75 corridor still hosts a deep bench of manufacturers and logistics employers between Dayton and Cincinnati, and experienced production workers are routinely recruited by neighboring plants. Whether those openings absorb 180 people will depend on timing — and on how many of the Franklin workers are willing to commute farther along the corridor.
What happens next: the first layoff phase begins Jan. 8, and local workforce agencies in Warren County will be the first stop for displaced workers looking for openings at other I-75 corridor manufacturers.
[…] strike lands in a difficult stretch for Ohio industrial workers. In Southwest Ohio, a Franklin auto-parts plant announced it will close and lay off 180 workers starting in January, while in Montgomery County a $100 million food plant leads five projects seeking county funding […]