By Wayne Laepple
KREAMER — Wood-Mode, the largest private employer in Snyder County, will lay off 95 workers, almost 8 percent of its workforce at the end of the week.
Tom Morgensen, human resources director, said the workers were notified Monday. Two years ago, he said, the company employed 2,000, but as of this layoff, employment is about 1,200.
Wood-Mode manufactures fine custom cabinets for kitchens and bathrooms.
“Cabinet orders have not been rebounding as well as we had hoped,” Morgensen said.
Layoffs will begin later this week, while others will start next week, he said.
This is the first layoff at the sprawling Kreamer plant since October 2008.
Some workers laid off last year were recalled in the spring, Morgensen noted, but they were laid off again in September. “Our customers just have not been responding to the improvements in the economy,” he said.
“We’ve had to let people go who have eight or nine years of experience with us,” he said. “They are good people, a well-trained workforce, who wanted to work here.”
