Trail King ‘cautiously’ adding employees

In a possible sign of better economic times to come, Trail King, one of the city’s largest employers, is hiring workers.

The local trailer-manufacturing plant laid off about 150 people in 2009 but has added 41 employees since the start of this year, and company President Carol Lowe said this week that she expects 39 more to be added between now and the end of the year.

That will bring the total number of employees at the Mitchell plant to 300. The employees will be temporary until the end of a 90-day trial period, when their performance will be evaluated and a decision will be made regarding the permanence of their positions.

“Cautiously, I’ll say we’re coming out of the recession,” Lowe said. “For us, we’re going in very measured steps.”

The hires are a combination of new and recalled employees.

Lowe, who is in charge of the two Trail King plants in Fargo and Mitchell, expects the local factory located along Interstate 90 will likely have less of a problem with inexperienced workers than the Fargo plant will.

“We convert them to permanent if they prove that they have good welding skills and good attendance,” Lowe said. “What we’ve found is that we have higher welding skill levels available to us in Mitchell.”

The combined employee numbers at the Fargo and Mitchell locations have increased by 30 percent since the beginning of the year, Lowe said, growing from 344 in January to 449 this month.

The hires come as part of what Lowe calls “a slow, steady growth” out of a recession that caused business at the Mitchell Trail King to drop by 65 percent in 2009.

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