The rumors of more job losses at the Bobcat plant in Gwinner had been circulating for two weeks. At 6 a.m. Wednesday, those rumors finally came true.

A manager posted an announcement that the company would go through another round of layoffs, cutting 138 workers at the Gwinner plant, amid a soured national economy.

"Just like that," said Darren Gissel, 42, who lost his forklifting job Wednesday at the Gwinner Bobcat plant, which employs about 1,000 people. "No warning, no explanation. Just posted on the wall two days before you're laid off."

Gwinner, a town of about 730 people that touts itself as the "proud home to the Bobcat skid-steer loader," is experiencing the effects of the global recession first-hand as its largest employer continues to purge workers.

Wednesday's layoffs were the latest in a string of staff reductions at various Bobcat plants in North Dakota.

Gissel and his wife, Michelle, 35, who also lost her assembly line job at the Bobcat plant on Wednesday, had worked at the company for more than five years. The Gissels own a house in Lisbon, 15 miles north of Gwinner.

"I'm really not impressed with the way management handled things around there," Gissel said. "I've had a lot of jobs in my life. Never have I worked anywhere where morale was as low as it was there."

Gwinner Mayor Dan McKeever said the town has been through an economic slump before, in the early 1980s, the last time he said Bobcat sent swaths of workers home with pink slips.

Good times eventually returned to Gwinner, McKeever said. Just last year, the town, which named its local school mascot after the company, celebrated Bobcat's 50th anniversary.

Now the recession, which has taken its toll on consumer confidence around the globe, is affecting the town once again.

The workforce at the Bobcat plant has steadily decreased over the last year and a half, nearing half of what it used to be just a few years ago, McKeever said.

"It just continues to wear on the local businesses and the local economy as a whole," he said. "We're just hoping sooner or later this turns around."

Rodney Hansen, owner of Hansen Lumber and Hardware on Highway 13 in Gwinner, said the job losses are the talk of the town. And after a successful 2008, Hansen said he's now starting to see the effects of the Bobcat reductions on his business.

"It ain't going gangbusters, I can tell you that," Hansen said, who added, "People, instead of replacing siding, they're going to paint - just being a little more cautious."

The layoffs also have affected the local real estate market.

"There has been an increase in the homes for sale; it's a result of the layoffs at Bobcat," said Jeff Anderson, a real estate agent at Smykowsi Real Estate in Gwinner.

Right now, there are six homes for sale in Gwinner, potentially seven, which is steep for the small town that usually sees one or two for sale at any given time under better economic conditions, Anderson said.

"The economy has swings, up and down; it's all cyclical," he said. "Hopefully, we're at the bottom of it right now. Things will come around here soon and we'll get back to the way things were."

Gissel said he has already started applying for jobs, adding Wednesday's announcement in a way gave him some relief.

"At least today I finally know," Gissel said. "It ain't what I want to hear, but at least I know. It's better than this unknown."

(Reach reporter Brian Duggan at 223-8482 or brian.duggan@bismarcktribune.com.)