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Country Coach lays off workers

Yahoo Message Number: 35836
From the Eugene Register-Guard

Country Coach lays off workers
By Tim Christie
The Register-Guard

Published: Dec 1, 2007 10:02:42AM

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JUNCTION CITY ? RV manufacturer Country Coach Inc. laid off part of its work force this week, a move that spokesman Matt Howard described as both "a seasonal and market adjustment."

"We need to make sure we're sized properly to stay healthy in a cyclical market," he said Friday.

Howard would not disclose how many workers lost their jobs in the layoff, which took place on Monday.
Country Coach is one of Lane County's largest private employers. Its work force has more than doubled since 2001, when it had about 769 workers. In June 2006, the company said it had 1,700 workers and was planning to hire 200 more to help build two new models of motor coaches.

In press releases on its Web site dating from last summer, the company said it had more than 1,600 employees; in a news story in October, the company said it had about 1,500 workers.
Howard said the total number today is less than 1,400, but noted the company loses a lot of workers, particularly entry level employees, through attrition.

Country Coach is privately held, so no one outside the company knows for sure how many workers have been laid off.

Junction City Mayor Dwight Coon said he heard 200 to 300; Taryl Perry, executive director of the Junction City-Harrisburg Chamber of Commerce, said one man came in this week and said he was one of 400 workers put out of work.

Both Perry and Coon said the layoffs are unfortunate but not surprising.

"I feel bad for the employees," Coon said. "It's just a reflection of the economy, and layoffs are an unfortunate effect of that. ... (RVs) are high-end, big-ticket items, and I think people are just pulling back a little bit."

Perry said, "With the RV industry, they go up and down. If a business like Country Coach left, that would be devastating. Periodic layoffs, we found, are not uncommon with that kind of industry."
Kristina Payne, work force investment manager with the Lane Workforce Partnership, which helps job-seekers and workers find work and improve their job skills, said a few laid-off Country Coach workers have come in this week looking for help.

Right now, the outlook is good for people with manufacturing experience "because we have quite a few job openings for people who have those skills," she said. "There are employers we can connect them right up with."

The agency is running classified ads this weekend and next, urging any one laid off from a manufacturing job to come into the office at 2510 Oakmont Way in Eugene.

"We know there are jobs out there," she said.

Howard said the company's market share is up in 2007, but the RV market as a whole is smaller. The company's "ultra high end" models are doing well, but the other models are in decline, he said.
The industry as a whole tends to slow down late in the fourth quarter as people turn their attention to holiday spending, he said.

"We just need to make sure we stay healthy," he said.