May 28--Less than a year after adding jobs, Thomasville Furniture Industries reportedly announced last week that it will be reducing its work force in Caldwell County.

Thomasville, which operates a case goods plant manufacturing wood furniture, bedroom and dining room pieces in Lenoir, cut approximately 150 positions.

Calls to Thomasville's Lenoir plant were directed to the parent company Furniture Brands International in St. Louis, which has neither confirmed nor denied the layoffs. Phone calls and an e-mail to FBI's John Hastings, a company vice president and communications official, by the News-Topic have not been returned.

The move comes just 10 months after the company announced in July 2008 that it was adding 100 jobs here. The rising costs of doing business overseas was cited then as the primary factor in adding those jobs.

Last week's announcement reduces the Thomasville labor force to less than 700. A soft retail market has been cited as the reason for cuts at Thomasville -- one of the nation's most recognizable furniture names -- as well as other companies owned by Furniture Brands International.

"It's another blow to the local economy," Caldwell County Commissioner Don Barrier said. "(These kinds of cuts) have been across the board. There's never an easy way to deal with it. This is tough for all those families affected."

The loss of positions at Thomasville was just the latest in a long line of job casualties for local furniture workers. Broyhill Furniture Industries has been hit especially hard by job losses the last three years, closing several long-standing facilities in Caldwell County while reducing its labor force substantially, though other companies have faced the same issues in competing on a global scale.

Manufacturing in North Carolina has taken quite a hit. Since April 2008, the state has lost approximately 80,000 manufacturing jobs.

The latest job losses in Caldwell County won't help an unemployment rate that been in double digits for five consecutive months and figures to be again when April's data is released later this week by the North Carolina Employment Security Commission.

Caldwell's unemployment rate in March was 15.3 percent, down from 16.5 percent in February.

"Business is tough out there, and that's all the more reason for us to continue to diversify; it's imperative that we continue down that path," Barrier said. "The community college is critical to our future and will be so important as we transition to a new economy."

Like Thomasville, Broyhill is a subsidiary of Furniture Brands. Headquartered in St. Louis, Furniture Brands is the parent company of Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Pearson, Hickory Chair, Laneventure and Maitland-Smith.

There also are indications that FBI is cutting jobs at two Drexel Heritage plants and Lane.

Earlier this month, FBI reported a first-quarter loss of $4.2 million, down from a profit of $33.6 million for the same period last year. Sales fell to $356.9 million after coming in at $477.2 million for the first three months of last year.

However, Furniture Brands, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FBN, has enjoyed a sharp reversal in its stock price. After bottoming out at 70 cents per share March 20, the stock climbed back above $4 earlier this month and closed Wednesday at $4.10.

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