Casper Star Tribune reports Wyoming Machinery Company is laying off employees.
Citing the downturn in the state’s energy sector, the CAT store announced Thursday that it had laid off about 6 percent of its workforce.
The company began offering early retirement packages earlier this year, and Thursday’s layoffs were the next step in coping with Wyoming’s energy downturn. The company disclosed the layoffs in a statement to the Star-Tribune. A company representative declined to comment further. The layoffs occurred in Casper and Gillette, according to the statement.
Wyoming Machinery has locations in Casper, Cheyenne, Gillette and Rock Springs — started out in the Oil City in 1969. Roughly half of the company’s employees work in Casper, according to the company’s website. The Casper-based company serves many sectors of the economy, but the oil and coal industries account for a sizable portion of its business. Wyoming’s unemployment rate has also been steadily rising and reached 5.2 percent in March — the highest it’s been since 2012. That number is expected to grow in the coming weeks, when coal mining layoffs and other industry cuts are factored into the unemployment rate.
