Here’s the good news: A once-shuttered manufacturing facility is up and running again, making flatware for people who want to buy an American-made product.
Here’s the bad news: Sherrill Manufacturing now employs about 35 people, instead of the hundreds the factory employed when it was churning out flatware for Oneida less than a decade ago. And many of the current employees are only temporary.
The situation at the factory in Sherrrill, N.Y., illustrates the difficulty even well-meaning U.S. employers are facing. With the economic situation uncertain, even those companies that want to add staff may not feel like they can hire a lot of new employees, or guarantee those people a job for very long.
“The main issue is that businesses don’t believe that demand for their products or services is going to be very strong over the next few years,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics. “It doesn’t make sense (to add) to your cost basis by taking on more workers.”
That cautiousness helps explain why the unemployment rate has been hovering around 9 percent for months, leaving around 14 million of Americans looking for work.
Take the case of Sherrill Manufacturing. The central New York factory traces its roots to the early 1800s, when it manufactured things like bear traps and canned goods. The factory later transitioned to making flatware for Oneida Corp., but that company shut the factory down in 2004 amid growing competition from cheaper overseas operations.
In 2005, two former Oneida employees bought the facility with the intention of supplying flatware to Oneida and supplementing the business by developing a light industrial park in the space.
Then the company lost the Oneida contract around the same time the economy was bottoming out.
“That was a one-two punch that we couldn’t sustain, and we had to shut down our factory,” said Matt Roberts, one of the men who had purchased the facility.
The struggles eventually forced the company to file for bankruptcy protection, and Roberts said the company is reorganizing. The company shrank from about 150 to about 15 employees.
The shutdown was bad news for a company called Silver Superstore, which was finding that the made-in-America flatware Sherrill Manufacturing had been supplying was a bestseller. The company was buying leftover inventory from Sherrill, but eventually that ran out, too.
About a month ago, the two companies struck a deal for Sherrill to resume producing flatware, but only until October. Roberts said the tempoprary run has allowed the company to increase its headcount to about 35, but many of the workers are only temporary.
“We’re hoping we will grow,” Roberts said. “It’s one of those things where (we’re saying), ‘Listen, if it takes off we’ll hire you on full-time.’”
Chuck Bourbonnais, co-owner of Silver Superstore, said his company is hoping to convince retailers to carry the made-in-America flatware, which would create enough business to justify running the factory for a longer period of time. The push to increase production is not strictly financial, he said.
“There’s definitely a patriotic part of it, too,” he said. “I would love to see everybody get back to work. We all think that the job market in the country is horrible, and you just look around and there are all kinds of people suffering. … We are taking a chance but personally I feel proud that we’re doing this.”
Still, even the best-case scenario does not mean that Sherrill will employ anywhere near the 500 workers they had at the peak, Bourbonnais said.
The situation at Sherrill is unique, but the wait-and-see mentality isn’t.
“Hiring is happening, but at a more cautious and slower pace,” said Becca Dernberger, vice president with the staffing firm Manpower.
Dernberger said she thinks employers are pickier these days, wanting to make sure that every person they hire is the exact right fit for a job. They also are increasingly looking for very specialized skills for dealing with new technologies and functions, she said.
“Companies are looking for really, really good people,” she said.
Some say they are seeing signs that should give jobseekers hope.
Jodi Chavez, a senior vice president with Ajilon Professional Staffing, a unit of staffing firm Adecco, said she’s even seen more interest in hiring than a year ago.
Still, Chavez said companies are making do with fewer employees overall, and she hears from many employers who want to hear a clearer economic stimulus plan from Washington before they commit to major hiring plans.
Dales, the economist, said he thinks many companies could afford to hire more workers if they decided they needed to. Many public companies, in particular, are sitting on significant cash stockpiles.
“It’s not really the case that companies don’t have the money,” Dales said. “It’s just they don’t have the confidence to spend that money or invest it in workers.”
There are some companies that are taking that risk. In Faribault, Minn., a retired Dairy Queen executive named Chuck Mooty recently teamed up with his cousin to reopen the local woolen mill.
The business partners are hoping that their American-made products will appeal to individuals, hospitality companies and even health care firms, allowing the company to compete effectively with similar products made overseas.
Mooty said Faribault Woolen Mill Company is employing about 35 people right now, and hopes to get to 50 by the end of the year. If things go well, they may even have 100 employees by sometime next year. (See video at top of post.)
He isn’t worried about finding the people he needs. Just by word of mouth, he said he’s been inundated with hundreds of resumes.
“We didn’t put one ad in the paper (and) we probably now have north of 250, closer to 300 resumes,” Mooty said.
