Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 31, 1995 TAG: 9501310146
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A restructuring at Elizabeth Arden Co., including buyout offers to veteran salaried workers, is not expected to have much effect at the Roanoke plant.
Fewer than 20 Roanoke Valley employees are eligible for the buyout, Arden spokeswoman Susan Arnot Heaney said Monday from the company's New York headquarters.
The Plantation Road plant employs 660 people full time, but most are hourly wage workers, she said.
The voluntary retirement incentive offers have been mailed to employees who meet length-of-service and age requirements. By encouraging some of those workers to retire, the company might be able to avoid some layoffs later, it said.
Arden's cosmetics are sold mainly through department stores. As more and more stores merge, the pressure increases on manufacturers to give volume retail buyers more attractive prices. And in order to be more cost-efficient and still increase profits, all manufacturers are trying to cut expenses.
In addition to the buyout program, non-salary expenses and department budgets in general are being tightened, Heaney said.
The company is continuing to grow, but not at the double-digit rates it did in the 1980s, she said.
``We're growing in sales and profits but not at the levels experienced in those halcyon days of the 1980s,'' she said.
Arden's sales are more than $1 billion.
The greatest impact from the buyout offer is expected to come in the company's headquarters, where the bulk of its salaried employees work.
Arden, owned since 1989 by Unilever, employs 4,400 worldwide and 1,830 in the United States. The Roanoke plant is its primary manufacturing facility in the United States and is also a distribution center.
by CNB