Carrier to ultimately lose some jobs Trump saved: report

Carrier will eventually lose some of the 800 jobs President-elect Donald Trump fought to save at the air conditioning and heater manufacturer’s Indianapolis plant, according to a new report.

United Technologies, Carrier’s corporate parent, is admitting its $16 million investment in the facility may ultimately replace some jobs with automation, CNBC said Friday.

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“We’re going to … automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive,” United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said in a CNBC interview earlier this week. “Is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No.

“But we will make that plant competitive just because we’ll make the capital investments there. But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.”

CNBC said the decision to keep Carrier’s furnace manufacturing operations in the U.S. will keep about 800 out of 1,400 jobs at its Indianapolis facility out of Mexico, at least in the near-term.

United Technologies declined to specify, however, how many of those remaining positions could vanish due to automation, or when.

CNBC added automation is the only way a plant in Indiana that pays approximately $20 hourly can compete with Mexican plants where workers earn $3 an hour instead.

Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers 1999, a union representing the Indianapolis plant’s workers, on Thursday said automation poses a big risk to jobs.

“Automation means less people,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.” “I think we’ll have a reduction of workforce at some point in time once they get all the automation in and up and running.”