By JEFF AMY

ATLANTA (AP) — A South Korean solar company says it will temporarily reduce pay and working hours for about 1,000 of its 3,000 employees in Georgia because U.S. customs officials have been detaining imported components needed to make solar panels.

Qcells, a unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Solutions, said Friday that it will also lay off 300 workers from staffing agencies at its plants in Dalton and Cartersville , both northwest of Atlanta.

The company says U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been detaining imported components at ports on suspicion that they contain materials that may have been made with forced labor in China, meaning it can’t run its solar panel assembly lines at full strength.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in August that her departm

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