Georgia Pacific Cuts 40 Jobs

Georgia Pacific isn’t exactly a house hold name, but the odds are good that they make, or make part of, something that you have in your home or office at this very second. For those of you who are not familiar with the company here is a look at how they describe themselves, “Georgia-Pacific is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of tissue, pulp, paper, packaging, building products and related chemicals. We have approximately 300 manufacturing facilities across North America, South America and Europe, ranging from large pulp, paper and tissue operations to gypsum plants, box plants and building products complexes.” Believe it or not the company owns brands like Angel Soft, Sparkle and Dixie. Currently the company employs about 40,000 people world wide in the paper products industry.

One of the plants that Georgia Pacific owns is in the town of Thorsby, which is in many respects a typical southern town. That facility employs about 218 people. Or at least it did. The company is laying off 40 of those 218 workers, which is a significant percentage of the overall workers at the facility.

Eric Abercrombie, a spokesperson for Georgia Pacific said the following about the job cuts to a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser, “It’s not a reflection of the work they have been doing. It’s just a result of market conditions and their effect on the building products industry and on the wood products facility out there. Like everyone else, we’ve been having to adjust to the market. We’ve been running kind of lean since April, and we just needed to make (tough) decisions.”

The facility makes a special kind of treated lumber that is used by the construction industry for housing projects. As the construction industry has stayed in a standstill, with little need to build and few companies financing new projects, the need for construction supplies have been seriously decreased. The specific product that they make, know as engineered lumber in the trade, is used primarily in flooring and roofing applications.

The company did not get rid of enough workers to qualify as a mass layoff action. In order for that to happen 10 more worker would have to be out of a job. This means that the company may cut the workers with no advance notice. For the time being the company did not give an advance date for the cuts, nor did they give out any information about what kind of severance the company plans to give the displaced workers.

Today, on the companies Twitter feed the company posted a recruiting tweet. The tweet says, “We’re recruiting on site @ASSE_Safety conference. Stop by the Career Room today for details! ‪#Safety2012‬ pic.twitter.com/JD0L3g2c” So apparently the company is not worried about the bottom line everywhere. The company representative did state to the same reporter that, “We will maintain a layoff list for about 12 months, during which those employees would be considered for any openings, so if market conditions come back, we can look to rehire.”