ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605280028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL AND GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITERS
NOTE: Lede
Singer Furniture Co., which has manufactured chests and other case goods in Roanoke since 1969, said Friday it will close its plant at the end of June. It will leave 290 workers without jobs.
The High Point, N.C.-based manufacturer, which also operates plants in Lenoir and Chocowinity, N.C., evaluated all three of its locations before deciding to close the Roanoke facility, said William Foster, the company's vice president of administration.
Singer has been facing an "overcapacity situation" for the last year, Foster said. The three plants have been operating on less than 40-hour work weeks because demand for furniture has been down, he said. "This was not economical to any stretch of the imagination," Foster said.
Singer employs 305 in its Roanoke manufacturing plant. The workers who are not laid off at the end of July will be transferred to the North Carolina factories or moved to the company's Roanoke administrative office, which handles customer service, credit and accounting for the company. The plant will cease production June 28.
The administrative office, which employs 50, will remain in Roanoke indefinitely, Foster said. Roanoke was the company's headquarters until 1994, when then-president Dennis Ammons moved to High Point.
Singer on Friday gave its production employees the 60-day notice of the plant closing, according to Virgil Thompson, a supervisor with the Virginia Employment Commission's job service office in Roanoke. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, passed by Congress in 1988, requires 60 days advance notice of plant closings or mass layoffs.
The workers' average hourly wage was $8.25 to $8.50, Foster said.
The 20 salaried employees included in the layoff will receive severance packages commensurate with their length of employment, he said.
Many of the Singer employees have had long service with the company, Thompson said. "It's the kind of story as a community that we don't like to see," he said.
If there's a bright side, Thompson said, it's that the economy is strong and there is a demand for workers such as those being laid off. Some companies that have heard of the closing have been calling the VEC looking for workers, he said. Hooker Furniture Corp. or Rowe Furniture Corp., both of which have plants in the Roanoke Valley, may possibly hire some of Singer's workers, he said.
The agency will be working with the company to help the laid-off workers, Thompson said. At the very least, it would probably be taking unemployment claims at the plant, he said.
Operations from the Roanoke plant, will be moved to the North Carolina factories. Neither Lenoir, near Asheville, which employs 700, nor Chocowinity, near Greenville, which employs 300, is likely to hire more workers, Foster said.
Singer in April laid off 200 workers at its Lenoir manufacturing complex, sparking questions about the company's financial health. But Foster said Singer Corp., the furniture company's parent, is determined to make Singer Furniture a successful operation.
"They are very aggressively going forward with new product development and areas for marketing our products," he said. "This is a sign that Singer has addressed its financial problems."
The Singer Corp., a sewing machine and home appliance company, is owned by Semi-Tech Global Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong, which has operations in more than 100 countries and boasts annual sales of $1.27 billion.
Singer Furniture has gone through at least four ownership changes during the last 10 years, Foster said, a factor that analysts have blamed for at least part of the company's problems.
"Each wave means you're creating some uncertainty," said Jerry Epperson, who follows the furniture industry for Mann, Armistead and Epperson in Richmond.
The Singer Co. originally bought the former Johnson-Carper Furniture Co. of Roanoke in 1969 and changed its name to Singer Furniture. As late as a year ago, Singer Furniture employed 500 people at its Roanoke plant.
But business for the furniture industry in general has been "sloppy" in recent months, Epperson said. Consumer demand has been sluggish due to high interest rates and high levels of consumer credit.
Sears, Roebuck & Co. remains Singer's largest customer. But the retailer has not been expanding its furniture business as aggressively as it once had planned, Epperson said. Within the last several months, Sears announced a slowdown of its proposed Home Life program, a chain of free-standing furniture stores.
Chris Cooper, vice president of public relations for America's Research Group, a Charleston, S.C., firm that follows the furniture industry, said a closing such as the one announced by Singer is a tragedy for the community, but it doesn't come as a big surprise.
"The industry is not expanding," Cooper said. "The economics of the industry are such that this is probably not the last plant closing we'll see."
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