Nexteer Automotive is a name that many of your have heard in the past. Unless, that is, you spent a lot of time looking at the people who makes the parts of the things that you use each day. So before we talk about the job cuts being made by the company lets begin by taking a look at how the company has chosen to describe itself, “Nexteer Automotive is a global leader in advanced steering and driveline systems. Nexteer’s in-house development and integration of hardware, software and electronics gives the company an unmatched competitive advantage as a full service steering supplier. Nexteer draws upon a 100-year heritage of vehicle integration expertise and product workmanship. The company has a strong foundation and a reputation for providing dependable steering solutions and enduring customer relationships.”

The company is getting ready to be rid of 70 workers in order cut back on its cost. The workers, who have not had their positions named for the time being, are all expected to be salary workers when the cuts are done. These kinds of job cuts are more than enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” For now the company has not said anything about what kind of severance, if any, the workers who are going to be cut are going to be given.

Interestingly enough the company has chosen to highlight a new product instead of looking at the cuts that they were making to their staffers. Here is a look at that latest release, “Specialist electric power steering supplier Nexteer Automotive is enabling global vehicle manufacturers to create custom steering calibrations to suit different local market requirements. The company’s ride and handling experts and in-house software engineers have provided the first customers with electric power steering (EPS) systems tuned to provide certain markets with different levels of feel, feedback and refinement. “The perceived quality of a vehicle’s steering by drivers in key markets is a critical part of any global vehicle platform’s commercial success,” said Laurent Bresson, Nexteer’s President and COO. “Drivers in some markets, such as the UK, expect higher levels of road-feedback than drivers in other markets. Nexteer’s high precision mechanical design and the strength of our in-house software expertise is making it viable for manufacturers to commission custom steering set-ups for some markets.” A vehicle’s steering feel is influenced by a range of parameters, including suspension geometry, tire and bushing stiffness, spring rates, mass distribution, but the quality of the EPS system is critical.”