Overview
- Qcells reduced pay and hours for about one-third of its roughly 3,000 Georgia employees at plants in Dalton and Cartersville.
- About 300 staffing-agency workers were let go as assembly lines slowed for lack of solar cells and other upstream components.
- CBP has detained shipments since June under heightened enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act announced in August.
- Qcells says its supply chain excludes China and Xinjiang, reports that most delayed shipments are now clearing, and expects to recall furloughed staff in the coming weeks and months with benefits maintained.
- The company is constructing an integrated ingot-to-module factory in Cartersville that is not yet producing cells, leaving it reliant on imports, and similar detentions have pushed peers like Maxeon to seek relief in the U.S. Court of International Trade.