Nearly 1,400 workers lose jobs at Ohio truck factory before Trump rally

Nearly 1,400 workers were laid off at a former Navistar truck factory in southwestern Ohio three days before President Donald Trump was due to hold a rally in the Dayton area. The layoffs were large enough to erase roughly a year of job growth across the greater Dayton region, according to the supplied report. They have sharpened economic concerns in a community where voters are weighing inflation, manufacturing and the performance of the president’s administration.

Kyle Bos, a 30-year-old United Auto Workers member who worked at the factory, said the loss had changed his family’s outlook. He said he had voted for Trump three times but now intended to campaign for Democrats before the November election. Bos said the cost of living had risen sharply and criticised Trump’s proposal to issue $5,000 checks if Republicans won control of Congress.

He described the proposal as a bribe and said political change was needed. Trump has presented manufacturing as a success of his policies. At a truck plant in Texas, he said factories and plants were being built across the country and manufacturing was returning.

The White House has also pointed to investments announced by Electra, Honda and Stellantis as evidence of job creation. The Ohio layoffs come in a region that has lost about half of its 90,000 factory jobs since 1990, according to federal data cited in the report. The decline accelerated after manufacturing shifted to Mexico and, later, as China joined the World Trade Organization.

The Dayton economy has also gained from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which directly employs 38,000 people, and from aerospace companies attracted by the base. The local race is politically significant: Republican Senator Jon Husted is facing former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown in a contest that could affect control of the Senate.