Overview
- Qcells will temporarily cut pay and hours for roughly one-third of its 3,000 Georgia workforce and lay off 300 staffing-agency workers at plants in Dalton and Cartersville.
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been detaining imported solar cells and upstream components under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, constraining assembly-line throughput.
- The company says its materials are sourced outside China, cites third-party audits, reports some shipments have now cleared customs, and plans to restore full production on a weeks-to-months timeline.
- Affected employees will retain full benefits during the furloughs as Qcells scales operations to match limited component supply.
- Qcells continues building a multibillion-dollar Cartersville facility to produce ingots, wafers, and cells, while peer manufacturer Maxeon pursues legal remedies after similar detentions hurt its U.S. sales.