The South Korean solar giant is also laying off 300 contractors, claiming its U.S. assembly lines are being starved of components detained by Customs despite having "no link" to China.
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| FILE - The Qcells solar panel plant is seen, June 27, 2025, near Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) |
ATLANTA, GA — In a jarring blow to Georgia's manufacturing sector, solar panel giant Qcells announced Friday it will temporarily reduce pay and working hours for approximately 1,000 of its 3,000 employees at its Georgia facilities.
The company, a unit of South Korea's Hanwha Solutions, also confirmed it will lay off 300 workers employed through staffing agencies at its plants in Dalton and Cartersville.
Qcells management blamed the drastic "HR actions" on a critical operational bottleneck: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been detaining the company's imported components at U.S. ports, starving its assembly lines and preventing full-scale production.
The detentions are part of an aggressive, administration-wide enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), a 2021 law designed to block any goods from China suspected of being made with forced labor.
In August, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced a significant escalation in UFLPA enforcement, and published reports indicate that CBP began detaining solar components, including those made by Qcells, as early as June.
Caught in the Crossfire: Qcells Denies Chinese Links
Qcells is now caught in the crossfire of U.S.-China trade policy, forced to idle a significant portion of its American workforce due to suspected foreign labor violations.
However, the company vehemently denies the premise of the detentions. A spokesperson insisted that none of its materials originate from China, let alone from forced labor.
"Our latest supply chain is sourced completely outside of China and our legacy supply chains contain no material from Xinjiang province based on third party audits and supplier guarantees,” said spokesperson Marta Stoepker.
Stoepker emphasized that Qcells maintains “robust supply chain due diligence measures” and has provided “very detailed documentation” to federal officials. While this documentation has been successful in getting some previous shipments released, the current backlog is forcing the company to take drastic measures to "improve operational efficiency."
"Although our supply chain operations are beginning to normalize... HR actions must be taken until production capacity returns to normal levels," Stoepker stated.
The affected full-time workers, who Qcells says earn an average of $53,000 a year, will retain their full benefits during the partial furloughs. The company stated it is cooperating with U.S. authorities and expects to resume full production in the coming weeks and months.
A spokesperson for CBP could not immediately be reached for comment on the Qcells-specific detentions.
The $2.3 Billion Irony
The current production crisis highlights a significant irony in U.S. manufacturing policy.
Qcells is currently in the final stages of constructing a massive $2.3 billion expansion in Cartersville. This plant is specifically designed to create a fully integrated U.S. solar supply chain taking raw polysilicon from Washington state to manufacture its own ingots, wafers, and solar cells.
This domestic supply chain would make the company immune to the very import-related detentions that are currently crippling its operations.
Remarkably, Qcells has continued its massive $2.3 billion investment even after President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress dismantled most of the federal tax credits for purchasing solar panels earlier this year.
"Our commitment to building the entire solar supply chain in the United States remains,” Stoepker affirmed. "We will soon be back on track with the full force of our Georgia team delivering American-made energy to communities around the country.”
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