Report: Furniture Brands lays off 250 at U.S. plants

Newspaper says operations in North Carolina, Mississippi affected

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, May 26, 2009

LENOIR, N.C. — Furniture Brands International cut about 250 jobs at plants in North Carolina and Mississippi last week due to a soft retail market, according to a story in the Hickory Daily Record.

The story reported that Thomasville Furniture Inds. trimmed its work force by about 150 in Caldwell County. Furniture Brands officials were unavailable for comment on Tuesday morning.

The story also reported that FBI had cut another 100 positions at Drexel Heritage plants in Morganton and Mount Airy, N.C., and at Lane plants in Mississippi.

In September 2008, Furniture/Today reported that Thomasville Furniture expected to add about 100 positions in both Thomasville and Lenoir capacity to help reduce lead times from shipping goods from Asia.

FBI officials were unavailable to confirm whether those positions were staffed or affected by the most recent round of job cuts.