Heartland Recreational Vehicles closing its production facility in Sturgis and laying off dozens of employees just four years after landing over $1 million in grants from Michigan taxpayers.

Mark Dilworth, the company’s director of human resources, provided some details on the decision in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification to the state on Tuesday.

The notice states the “plant closure due to business necessity” will result in the “permanent layoff” of 121 employees by June 20, which includes six salaried and 115 non-union hourly workers.

🚨 LAYOFF ALERT – Michigan 🇺🇸

Heartland Recreational Vehicles, LLC is shutting down and will lay off 121 employees at 1500 Haines Blvd. Sturgis, MI on June 20, 2025, as indicated in a WARN. pic.twitter.com/VWnJ3E10Ve

— The Layoff Tracker 🚨 (@WhatLayoff) April 23, 2025

 

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The Elkhart, Ind., company inked a deal with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in July 2021 to invest $35.9 million in its Sturgis facilities and create 450 jobs in exchange for over $1 million in taxpayer subsidies, Crain’s Grand Rapids Business reports.

“The Michigan Economic Development Corp. in July 2021 approved a $700,000 performance-based Michigan Business Development Program grant to support the investment,” according to the business publication. “The Michigan Department of Transportation also kicked in a $307,000 Transportation Economic Development Fund grant for the project.”

The 144,000-square-foot Heartland RV facility officially opened in Sturgis in November 2023 with 34 assembly line stations set up to produce up to 5,000 RVs per year. It’s unclear whether the company fulfilled its grant requirements to pocket the taxpayer cash.

The company also added a 73,000-square-foot parts warehouse and a production facility to its Elkhart campus in 2022 and 2023, respectively, according to MLive.

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Heartland’s parent company, Thor Industries, announced a “strategic organizational restructuring” in March that shifted the Heartland brand under its Jaygo division to improve profits, Crain’s reports.

The move was designed to create “a more seamless operational framework that allows us to operate more efficiently and more effectively in the evolving U.S. market,” Thor CEO Bob Martin said.

Heartland’s WARN notice follows a 12-month trend of rising unemployment in the Great Lakes State that’s outpacing every other state in the country by a wide margin. Michigan’s 5.5% unemployment rate for March marks a 1.3 percentage point increase over the last year, equating to 69,000 more Michiganders out of a job than during same month in 2024 – a 32.9% increase. Michigan is now second only to Nevada’s 5.7% for the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

Michigan lost 5,000 manufacturing jobs in March alone, 4,000 in professional and business services, and another 1,000 in the construction industry. The roughly 10,000 lost jobs were offset some by a gain of 2,000 government jobs, and 1,000 each in retail, financial, leisure and hospitality, and other services, for a net loss of 5,000 for March.

Data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows Michigan’s job losses are continuing into April with a 38% increase to 6,500 new unemployment claims the week ending April 12 compared to a year ago.

Many of the job losses are tied to Michigan’s critical manufacturing industry, and the automotive industry in particular.

In an April 9 notice, Tribar Technologies announced it will close two auto finishing facilities in Wixom, and consolidate operations in Howell, laying off 188 workers by June 8.

Electric vehicle battery manufacturer Akasol Inc. will also cut 188 employees as it closes two facilities in Hazel Park and Warren by July, when it’s moving operations to South Carolina.

Those closures follow the decision by Michigan Spring & Stamping in February to shut down its Muskegon operations after 79 years as a “significant player” in the state’s automotive industry.

“We are projecting Michigan’s economic growth to slow substantially over the next two years, but we are not projecting an outright downturn,” read a Michigan economic outlook published by University of Michigan’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics in late February.

“We expect Michigan’s cyclical labor market to stabilize during the first half of 2025, as the broader economy adjusts to lower interest rates and rising tariffs, while the previous influx of international migrants continues to find work,” UM economists wrote. “However, we do not anticipate significant improvement beyond the first half of the year.”