Windowmaker Defenestrates 50 Jobs; Temp Layoffs for 400 Others

Bayport, Minnesota’s Anderson Windows & Doors is permanently reducing its workforce by 50 people, and temporarily laying off 400 others at the plant during Q1. Employees were told this week that they could depart immediately and get paid for two weeks of service before their severance kicks in.

The layoffs are the fifth set of staff reductions for the giant window & door maker since January 2007, and were prompted by slow housing sales and the continuing credit crunch. Andersen has tried other ways to cut labor costs in the past few years, including offering early retirements, shorter workweeks, and voluntary, temporary layoffs.

It’s uncertain when the temporarily laid off workers would be called back, but company officials don’t expect that to occur before April.

The company was founded in 1903 by Danish immigrant Hans Andersen and his family in Hudson, Wisconsin. Andersen first began mass producing in 1904, nine years before Henry Ford put the automobile on an assembly line. Today the company is headquartered in Bayport, and employs more than 14,000 people in locations across North America. It has 16 manufacturing facilities, and manufactures more than 12 million windows and doors per year.