UPDATE: Commerce battery plant layoffs

There is more information this morning about those planned layoffs at a Commerce electric battery plant which were first disclosed in September.

Georgia News Network reports that production is also being cut at the SK Battery plant. Officials from the massive electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturer revealed Friday that many workers will be furloughed as demand for EVs wanes. They say they are still committed to the site but must adjust the plant’s pace of growth. The company had employed around 3,000 people at the Jackson County plant as late as September.

The number of layoffs has still not been disclosed.

EARLIER STORY: Commerce battery plant layoffs (wgtjradio.com)

About the Author

Ken Stanford is Online News Editor for GLORY 97.5, a position he has held since August 2022.

Ken was born in Moultrie, Georgia, and says he knew from the time he was 5 or 6 he wanted to be a “radio announcer.” That dream was realized when he was hired by Moultrie radio station WMTM in 1960 at the age of 15 as a weekend disc jockey. A 1963 graduate of Moultrie (now Colquitt County) High School, he has spent his whole career in Georgia working for stations in Atlanta, Marietta, and Gainesville – most recently as News Director for 40 years at WDUN in Gainesville. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

Ken retired in 2011 but came out of retirement last year to help GLORY, on a part-time basis, beef-up its online news presence.

He is the recipient of many Associated Press awards and is a former judge of state and national Associated Press broadcast news contests. In 2005, he was presented with the Georgia Associated Press Broadcasters Association’s President’s Award for Excellence in Journalism and in 2019 was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.

He lives in Gainesville with his wife of 52 years, the former Sandra McKnight of Clio, Alabama, and they have one child, a daughter, Lisa, who lives in Cumming with her family.