Vestas makes layoff round in Colorado citing slowdown

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A wind turbine outside the Vestas plant in Pueblo.

Vestas Wind Systems said Monday it is laying off workers at its tower plant in Pueblo.

There was no immediate word whether the Danish wind turbine manufacturer is making any cuts at three other Vestas plants in Colorado. Vestas keeps its North American headquarters in Portland.

Vestas said the layoffs in Pueblo accounted for about 3 percent of the more than 3,000 workers the company employs in North America.

Three percent of 3,000 workers would be nearly 100 people.

The Pueblo plant, which makes towers that hold wind turbines aloft, employed more than 450 people before today, the company said.

The Denver Post says Pueblo officials were told the plant itself is not shutting down.

Vestas has said for months it would lay off people at its U.S. manufacturing plants during the third quarter if Congress did not act to extend the federal Production Tax Credit for wind-generated energy.

The company employs about 1,700 people combined at its four Colorado plants. The tax credit, about $22 per megawatt hour of energy generated, is set to expire at the end of 2012.

The presidential candidates are split on the tax credit.

President Barack Obama has said he supports extending the tax credit, while his opponent in the presidential race, Mitt Romney, favors letting it lapse at the end of the year as scheduled.

“Uncertainty” over whether the tax credit would be extended is causing “a general market slowdown for wind power manufacturers and developers throughout the U.S.,” Vestas company said in a statement.

“Vestas has noted that many wind power jobs are at risk if Congress does not extend the PTC — not only at Vestas, but also within the hundreds of domestic supply chain manufacturers that serve the wind industry in North America,” the company said.

There is a push on to pass an extension of the tax credit, but it still awaits a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Vestas officials said last month that layoffs have affected roughly 1 percent of the Portland workforce, a staff of about 400 people.

Read more about Vestas' Colorado operations in the Denver Business Journal.