Irving adds shift, hires new workers

DIXFIELD – Nine of the 60 employees who lost their jobs when the Ethan Allen Furniture sawmill in Andover closed last month have been hired at Irvings Forest Products in Dixfield.

Irvings' spokeswoman Mary Keith said from the central office in St. John, New Brunswick, on Monday afternoon that the former Ethan Allen employees are part of the crew that enabled the mill to add a second shift recently. That shift was started when a contract with national home improvement retailer Home Depot was signed, Keith said. The second shift works primarily on specialty pine items.

Irvings employs 230 people on shifts that run from 4:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and 3 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.

It had had a second shift until 2005 when a decline in the wood market started.

Keith said when the second shift began in mid-June that the company is committed to keeping the second shift permanent. She is also hopeful that the need for a second shift is a sign that the economy may be turning around.

Several of the mills and other manufacturing plants owned by Ethan Allen, based in Danbury, Conn., either lost jobs or consolidated due to a severe sales decline between March 2008 and March 2009. The Andover employees were certified to receive assistance through the federal Trade Adjustment Act.

Irvings Forest Products specializes in white pine products.

eadams@sunjournal.com