Philly’s Cardone Industries, hammered by auto slowdown in the pandemic, eliminates employees, report says

Cardone Industries, one of Philadelphia’s largest manufacturing employers, is cutting labor costs with furloughs or layoffs of 680 employees, according to a report on Thursday.

The cutback amounts to more than half of Cardone’s city workforce of 1,200 employees. The company reconditions used auto parts for sale at auto parts chains. About 80 percent of the affected workers will be furloughed, the Philadelphia Business Journal reported.

The company could not be reached on Thursday for comment. Cardone’s headquarters are on Whitaker Avenue and it has a plant on the 5600 block of Rising Sun Avenue.

Even before the pandemic, Cardone had been struggling for the last decade to compete with low-priced Chinese auto parts imports and had expanded its manufacturing operations to Texas and Mexico. The company also operates plants in Canada.

But the pandemic has jolted the auto industry by idling cars and prompting the closing of car-manufacturing plants. Goodyear, the U.S. tire company, announced on Thursday that its first-quarter tire shipments fell 18 percent because of shuttered auto-assembly plants. Goodyear eliminated its dividend and cut employee expenses through furloughs as well as reduced or deferred compensation, affecting 9,000 workers.