Andersen cuts more than 500 jobs
A plant closing last week cost 287 workers, and 250 more positions are to end, more than half of them at headquarters in Bayport.
By STEVE ALEXANDER, Star Tribune
Window manufacturer Andersen Corp. said Tuesday it will permanently eliminate 250 management and staff positions, more than half of them at its Bayport, Minn., headquarters.
In addition to the job cuts announced Tuesday, Andersen eliminated 287 jobs last week as part of the closing of a vinyl window manufacturing plant in Fall River, Mass., said Maureen McDonough, a spokeswoman.
Tuesday's workforce reduction represents about 10 percent of the company's management and office staff. Those cuts come at a time when 600 production workers who were laid off earlier this year have been recalled as orders have improved slightly.
The management and staff cuts are being made because the company believes its markets won't recover until late 2010 or early 2011, making it necessary to eliminate jobs that aren't directly related to the current volume of window production, McDonough said.
"While we had every hope and intention of riding out this market correction without making adjustments like this, it has become clear that these actions are necessary to protect the company's financial strength and flexibility given the fading prospects for a near-term housing market recovery," Jay Lund, president of the Andersen Window and Door Group, said in a statement.
Thomas Stinson, the state economist, said Andersen's timeline for a housing market recovery "is consistent with other forecasts I've seen" and that the company's decision to cut overhead expenses makes sense.
The company is right to be cautious because it could take the nation a long time to get back to a normal level of housing starts, he said. U.S. housing starts in 2008 were at the lowest level since World War II, and this year there will be only half as many new houses as there were last year, he said.
