After 10 years of revving engines and running smoothly on open roads, Harley-Davidson is downshifting its Kansas City plant.

Original Story: kansascity.com

As part of companywide cuts announced Thursday, 460 plant employees will be laid off in September. Four hundred more will be idled in a shutdown for several weeks this fall.

The iconic American company, based in Milwaukee, said the recession is cutting deeply into sales. Analysts also said the company continues to adjust because baby boomer consumers loyal to its brand — the big and throaty Harley hog — are aging.

Harley announced the job cuts as part of its second-quarter financial report. Although it posted a profit, net earnings plunged 91 percent and sales were down about 27 percent.

Besides Harley, Honda and Yamaha saw falling U.S. sales in the first half of the year, with consumers staying away from leisure items such as motorcycles.

U.S. motorcycle sales dropped 31 percent in the first quarter and dealer inventory rose.

Those trends continued in the second quarter. Harley said its U.S. retail sales were down 35 percent compared with the same time last year.

Companywide, the job cuts will total 1,000 employees, including the 460 laid off here. Workers will also be laid off in Wisconsin, and a Harley factory there, as well as one in York, Pa., will also be temporarily idled.

About 700 of the 1,000 layoffs will be production workers and the rest will be salaried employees, said Pat Sweeney, a company spokeswoman.

In Kansas City, a union official said 10 salaried employees will be let go.

The union workers won’t get any monetary severance package, but they will keep health benefits for one year, said Tony Wilson, president of Machinists Local Lodge 176.

The hourly jobs being eliminated paid $18 to $25 an hour, he said.

“We were told by the company that once full production resumes at the start of the year, as many as 300 of the 450 people we’re losing could come back,” he said. “The 300 returning would be a best-case scenario, and that’s the hope.

“But it will really depend on what the economy is doing and how sales are going.”

The 1,000 job cuts are in addition to reductions made this spring when Harley said it would eliminate about 1,500 hourly and 300 salaried positions.

“We continue to take these difficult actions to manage through the current challenges, and we also continue to take major steps in creating the operational effectiveness that is essential to our long-term future,” Keith Wandell, Harley’s new president and CEO, said in a prepared statement.

But Harley faces a special problem in that its main customer base is baby boomers, a group that is spending less in the economic downturn.

The average Harley customer is 47 years old, one analyst said.

Don Brown, an analyst in Irvine, Calif., said that “it’s going to be very hard for Harley to make the transition from baby boomers to Generation Y consumers. They’re kind of a tough bunch. They’re independent and don’t really care about loyalty to brands.”

Still, Harley is making strides in expanding its brand appeal, a local dealer said.

“They do a lot marketing in extreme sports, as well as trying to get more women to ride their bikes,” said Gail Worth, owner of Gail’s Harley-Davidson in Grandview. “Whenever I talk to them about it, they’re behind all the new ideas dealers bring up. Sometimes they’re ahead of us, so I think Harley’s executive team is doing an excellent job.”