Economy sparks layoffs
Woodgrain Millwork announces corporate-wide job cuts in response to
sluggish economy
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:15 AM PDT
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| Brandi Mack | Argus Observer
Woodgrain MIllwork in Fruitland laid off 20 employees recently. The job cuts are in response to the recent downturn in the housing industry and the onset of tougher economic times across America. |
FRUITLAND — A slumping economy and a slow housing market is no longer a distant crisis for some Woodgrain Millworks employees.
The Fruitland firm laid off approximately 20 of its 1,000 workers two weeks ago in the wake of a corporate-wide mandate that each division in the nation cut its workforce by 2 percent, Woodgrain Public Relations Representative Brooks Dame said.
The layoffs, he said, are a direct result of the national housing slump.
“The current state of the housing market is off significantly from last year,” he said.
Woodgrain employs approximately 3,000 workers in the United States and 5,000 world-wide. Dame said the company’s divisions in South America were not affected by the economic slump.
Dame said housing starts in 2006 were at about 2 million, but this year they are less than 1 million.
Dame said Fruitland Woodgrain Millworks, which manufactures building supplies and materials, such as moulding, has never experienced a layoff such as this.
Nor has the firm had this kind of company-wide mandate before in all its 50 years, Dame said.
“So it’s kind of a big deal for us,” he said.
Dame said the layoffs directly reflect the lower demands for housing materials, lower housing starts and uncertainty as to where the economy is going.
“Going through the layoffs are basically our way of dealing with those effects, I guess,” Dame said. “Really, we just don’t have the orders that we did a year ago.”
After the layoffs were announced, Woodgrain contacted the Idaho Department of Labor, Payette office, about the situation, and Dame said Woodgrain Millworks also offered the workers severance packages.
Of those workers laid off, Dame said he knows some have already found jobs again, but he doesn’t know how many.
Jim Smith, Idaho Department of Labor regional manager, Payette office, said once the employment office was notified of the cuts, the department hosted a few meetings for the displaced workers, notifying them what services the department has to aid them in their search for employment. He said the department offers a number of federally-funded employment service programs, including worker investment programs, where displaced workers are eligible for services such as retraining, resume assistance, travel expense coverage for interviews.
“There’s a depth of things that we cover,” Smith said. He said he believes most of the displaced workers in Idaho who were interested attended the meetings, and he knows the Oregon Training and Employment Consortium in Ontario also scheduled meetings for those workers living in Oregon. Smith urges anybody else who is interested in the programs to contact either office, or contact himself, or Yvette Mendoza at the Oregon office, personally with questions or for information for confidentiality reasons.
