After requesting $126 million in bonds to retool its factory, Bowling Green Metalforming on Friday laid off about 50 employees.

The layoffs are a result of declining sales in the truck market, said Tracy Fuerst, a spokesperson for Magna International, Bowling Green Metalforming’s parent company.

Fuerst said she does not know if the company will lay off more employees.

“It’s too premature to comment,” she said. “We just don’t know the magnitude of anything just yet.”

The plant, which operates in the Kentucky Tri Modal Transpark and employs close to 900 workers, has produced parts for pickup truck frames since it opened.

But the economic slump has hit the truck market hard, and the plant recently requested bonds to buy new equipment to retool its plant. And now officials have indefinitely laid off 50 salary and hourly paid employees as a result of the truck sales slump.

Fuerst said she does not know if the revamped plant will offer more jobs or lead to laid off workers being rehired.

About 47 employees were also laid off Aug. 22, but those employees were rehired.

Bowling Green Metalforming was the first and largest plant to move into the transpark.

When it first moved to Bowling Green, the plant received $167 million in industrial revenue bonds.

Bowling Green Metalforming was exempted from property taxes and received a rebate from the city’s occupational tax as part of a state incentive package that lured the plant to Bowling Green.

The $126 million in bonds the company recently requested will fund new equipment to produce parts for other vehicle types.

The bonds have received city approval and are waiting final approval from county officials.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported manufacturers had nearly 600 nationwide layoff events in August, which resulted in more than 72,000 unemployment insurance claims. The bulk of those claims came from transportation equipment manufacturers with almost 20,000 unemployment claims.

The Bowling Green Metalforming layoff announcement precedes a week-long shutdown of the General Motors Bowling Green Assembly Plant and around 70 layoffs there as a result of slumping car sales.