Hoover to lay off 151 El Paso workers

EL PASO – The Hoover vacuum manufacturing plant in West El Paso plans to lay off 151 workers at the end of March. The El Paso factory, in the Northwest Corporate Center industrial park, off Trans Mountain Rd., will employ about 180 people after the layoffs.

In 2007 the El Paso plant employed more than 600 people.

In January, Leviton said it would lay off more than 300 people over the next several months and close its West Side factory, and Boeing said it would cut its manufacturing operations in Northeast El Paso in half and lay off about 160 people.

The layoffs, even though spread over several months, may increase El Paso’s unemployment rate, which rose to 8.9 percent in December 2012. The national rate in January was 7.9 percent.

El Paso’s manufacturing sector employed an estimated 17,400 people in December 2012, or about 6 percent of El Paso’s workforce, according to Texas Workforce Commission data.