Wood-Mode official: layoffs are seasonal
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KREAMER -- Rod Hunter has been around the cabinetry industry long enough to know that there isn't much holiday cheer with kitchen remodeling.
"People with homes aren't remodeling their kitchens this time of year," said Hunter, the general manager for Wood-Mode LLC in Kreamer. "They don't do much of that during Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we've scaled back production a little bit in order to meet our order needs."
Calling it a temporary seasonal layoff, the Snyder County custom cabinetry manufacturer laid off 35 employees on Oct. 13.
He said that Wood-Mode still has about 550 employees.
Local agencies, including the Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corp., based in Sunbury, and PA CareerLink for Northumberland, Snyder and Union Counties set up a Rapid Response Assistance program at the CareerLink office in Sunbury for any employees who were laid off.
"Good companies react to their environment and conditions within their industry, and that's what we're doing," Hunter said.
With marketing programs and sales incentives coming in 2024, Hunter expects Wood-Mode to be "fully staffed by the middle-to late-January," he added. "We should be back to full capacity shortly after the first of the year."