Fiat Chrysler laying off more than 1,300 workers at Belvidere Jeep plant

Fiat Chrysler is laying off 1,371 workers at its Belvidere Assembly Plant, effective on May 2, because of slowing demand for the Jeep Cherokee.

Workers were notified Tuesday that the plant near Rockford, Ill., which currently operates with 5,300 employees working the equivalent of three shifts will scale back to a traditional two-shift schedule on May 6.

"We are aligning production with global demand," Jodi Tinson, a spokeswoman for Fiat Chrysler, said Tuesday.

In addition to the affected workers, Fiat Chrysler notified the state of Illinois, the city of Belvidere and the United Auto Workers of the planned layoffs Tuesday.

The announcement came the same day that Fiat Chrysler, the third-largest U.S. automaker, said it would invest $4.5 billion and create 6,500 jobs at several plants in Michigan to produce a new, three-row SUV.

The moves are part of a continuing restructuring at Fiat Chrysler, begun under then-CEO Sergio Marchionne, to focus on more lucrative trucks and SUVs and phase out production of lower-margin sedans. Marchionne died in July, and was replaced by Mike Manley.

The Belvidere plant has been the exclusive home for the Jeep Cherokee since June 2017, when production moved from Toledo, Ohio.

Production was ostensibly humming along last year at Belvidere, which churned out nearly 220,000 vehicles through September _ topping the 204,000 Jeep Cherokees built in all of 2017.

But Fiat Chrysler projected a softer market this year for the Cherokee, Tinson said.

"Demand for Cherokee in the global marketplace is softening," Tinson said. "As Belvidere is the sole production location for Cherokee, it is feeling the impact."

When Fiat Chrysler announced in July 2016 that it was moving production of the Cherokee from Toledo to Belvidere, there were about 4,500 employees at the plant making everything from the Dodge Dart sedan to the Jeep Compass and Patriot compact SUVs.

The automaker invested $350 million to retool the Belvidere plant for the Jeep Cherokee.

Fiat Chrysler said it would "make every effort to place indefinitely laid off hourly employees in open full-time positions as they become available based on seniority."