Two things jump out at me. First:
The average hourly worker at the plant is 53 years old with 27 years of service, Mallen said.
The "average" hourly worker? This could lead one to believe that there are many young folks working at this plant, if by average, the reporter is referring to "average" in the statistical context.
Second,
The Plain City plant, which employed 650 in 1997, had been losing workers in recent years as the result of automation that was introduced in 2000, Mallen said.
The plant has lost more workers due to automation than due to moving jobs off-shore, if this part of the article is indeed correct.
That is true. But now even the remaining jobs, presumably those either "immune" from automation, or maybe even those that were created by the introduction of automation, are being lost to overseas labor. That seems to indicate that if it comes down to a contest between automation and cheap (some might say slave) labor, guess which one wins?