ANDOVER – Thirteen people were laid off Thursday at the Ethan Allen Inc. furniture plant and sawmill, a company official in Connecticut said Monday.
The plant was formerly known as Andover Wood Products.
The remaining employees had their hours reduced from 40 to 32 a week, said Director of Investor and Public Relations Peg Lupton in Connecticut.
The mill and furniture plant restructuring, she said Monday afternoon, was needed “to keep inventories in balance with incoming orders.”
Lupton said the sawmill’s night shift was eliminated, resulting in layoffs.
The Andover plant produces hardwood panels for furniture.
Lupton said Ethan Allen management believes that the layoffs are “to be short-term in duration.” Exactly how long, she said, is unknown.
The Andover mill and plant wasn’t the only Ethan Allen facility forced to undergo change for the benefit of the company.
According to an Associated Press story Thursday, Vermont plants in Orleans and Beecher Falls also cut their workweeks to 32 hours for the foreseeable future.
Ethan Allen in Beecher and Orleans employs almost 1,000 workers. Lupton did not say how many are employed at the Andover operation.
Lupton was quoted in the AP story as saying that affected plants are to resume full-time hours on a case-by-case basis, depending on how soon the inventory backlog moves out.
“The retail environment in recent months has been challenging, as has also been noted by many others across our industry,” said Ethan Allen Chairman and CEO Farooq Kathwari in the company’s sales and earnings report for its third-quarter, which ended March 31.
“During the last three years, we have changed 70 percent of our products to improve both style and value, strengthened our retail network by adding more than 40 new stores in prime locations, and balanced our sourcing of products between our U.S. plants and offshore manufacturing,” Kathwari stated.
According to the report, net delivered sales for the quarter ended March 31 were $231.2 million, down $13.4 million from last year’s third quarter figure of $244.6 million.
Ethan Allen is a leading manufacturer and retailer of quality home furnishings. The company has 12 manufacturing facilities, which include two sawmills, throughout the United States.
Comments are no longer available on this story