Laid off from Oshkosh Corporation.

What Oshkosh Corporation layoffs have meant for employees

Who loses a job in an Oshkosh cut has changed from one round to the next. When Oshkosh Defense announced cuts in 2014, it said it had left openings unfilled and, as promised to the UAW, which represents its production employees, brought outside contracted work in-house, and that the reductions would fall mainly on temporary workers and retiring employees' positions, UPI reported. In announcing its 2025 layoff, the company said upskilling, insourcing and voluntary reductions hadn't ended its overstaffing in some production areas, according to the Oshkosh Northwestern. The October 2026 cut fell on salaried office staff outside the union, as FOX11 reported. For production workers, those reports name the steps Oshkosh said it took before cutting, from leaving openings unfilled to voluntary reductions, and the groups each round affected.

UAW Local 578, which represents 1,268 members across seven Oshkosh plants, put the 2025 cuts at the plant on the company's choices. Its president blamed Oshkosh's focus on military work after it lost the JLTV Phase 2 contract, which AM General won in February 2023 in a five-year deal worth $8.7 billion, and called for outsourced work to return to Oshkosh, urging the company to "expand your customer chain using our Oshkosh workforce," the Northwestern reported. Members had objected to the company building its postal delivery trucks in South Carolina rather than its Oshkosh plants. If you're a member, the local has tied the fight over these jobs to where Oshkosh Corporation puts its work as well as to what the military orders.

Outside defense, several of Oshkosh's cuts followed decisions to move work elsewhere. More than one of those plans named another Oshkosh plant to take the work, as KHL reported of the Orrville telehandlers and Power 96 of the Dodge Center mixers bound for London, Ontario, and a 2016 plan turned JLG's aftermarket parts network over to a third-party logistics company, the company's September 2016 filing says. If your line is the one moving, the earlier announcements named where the work would go, though none promised the people doing it a place at the receiving plant. A lost product line didn't always empty the site, either. Orrville's engineering services were to continue as the plant closed, KHL reported, and Dodge Center was to keep building refuse collection vehicles, Power 96 reported. Other businesses ended outright. Oshkosh stopped making the mobile medical trailers it sold in the U.S. as Oshkosh Specialty Vehicles in April 2012 and its Medtec ambulances in March 2013, its 10-Q for early 2013 shows, and in August 2012 it sold its interest in SMIT, a mobile medical trailer maker based in Europe.

If you work on one of Oshkosh AeroTech's airport service contracts, Honolulu shows what losing one meant for the people working on it. The company said it was ending its Honolulu operations and told the state the terminations were permanent, as Hawai'i Public Radio reported.

Headline totals at Oshkosh have mixed people with positions. The 2008 cut counted retirements and unfilled openings along with layoffs, Vertikal reported. In 2013 the company said bringing outside work in-house had saved more than 165 production jobs, and that it would reach out to county and state workforce agencies and local employers to help those let go, according to BizTimes. In Dodge Center in 2020 it committed to a transition program with outplacement help and coordination with Minnesota's workforce agency, Power 96 reported. If you're judging a round by its headline number, the number of people actually laid off can be smaller, as it was in 2008.