More Timber Industry Job Cuts

Plum Creek Suspends Operations at Kalispell Plant, 24 Employees Laid Off

By Kellyn Brown, 9-23-08

Plum Creek Timber Co. announced Tuesday that it is suspending operations at its finger-joint stud manufacturing facility in Kalispell for the rest of the year, leaving 24 employees at the plant out of work.

“This specialty wood product is used almost exclusively in new residential construction,” Hank Ricklefs, vice president for Northern Resources and Manufacturing, said in a prepared statement. “Market prices are depressed and don’t currently cover the costs of production. We reduced shifts in January, hoping to avoid a production stop, but unfortunately the market has not changed. We will re-evaluate the FJ Reman business throughout 2009 to determine if we can resume production at this facility.”

Employees laid off on Sept. 30 will be given priority if they apply for other Plum Creek jobs. Those who don’t secure jobs will receive severance benefits. The company says it will reevaluate the market at the end of the year and determine whether to resume operations.

Earlier this month, 35 workers were laid off from Plum Creek’s mill in Columbia Falls.

This week, the Tricon Timber mill in St. Regis, citing a soft lumber market, announced that it had laid off 40 full- and part-time workers.

Last spring, Stimson Lumber closed its sawmill in Bonner, putting 92 people out of work.

Related: Plum Creek Eliminates 35 Jobs at Columbia Falls Fiberboard Plant

Related: St. Regis Mill Lays Off 40 Employees
[End of article]

Comment By Citizen, 9-23-08

A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.

Comment By Carl, 9-24-08

Remember the days when there was a timber industry, mining industry? When we could travel the forest roads? When there were forest roads? When there were good paying jobs at timber mills? When there were timber mills? Ah, such progress we’ve made in the past 15 years or so.

Comment By Citizen, 9-24-08

Remember all that dead standing timber from the fires that we couldn’t log? Remember the housing boom and the price of timber was high, yet still we could not log? Oh how bad this will soon get. Now the prepare the last shot into the head of the dollar as the inflationary spiral begins.

Comment By Carl, 9-24-08

Yup - doom approaches.

Comment By JB, 9-24-08

Welcome to the beginnning of yet another downslide for the economy of the Flathead...now all we need is a good, hard winter and people will start leaving in droves…

This article was printed from flatheadbeacon.com at the following URL: http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/plum_creek_suspends_operations_at_kalispell_plant_24_employees_laid_off/5711/