Top 5 business/economy story — No. 2: Job losses – Unemployment rate

Editor’s note: With the days, weeks and months seemingly passing faster than ever, it can be difficult to remember what happened yesterday much less the past six months. To that end, The City Wire will during the next three weeks highlight the top 5 stories of the first half of 2009 in the following categories: Business/economy, political, and cultural. The top 5 business/economy stories will be counted down between July 20 and July 24; the political top 5 between July 27 and July 31; and the top 5 cultural between Aug. 3 and Aug. 7.

The Fort Smith metro area has largely been able to avoid the economic hits of past national recessions.

Not this time.

The unemployment rate in the Fort Smith metro area jumped from 6.1% in December 2008 to 7.7% in January 2009. The rate stayed at 7.7% in February and fell to 7.1% by April, but moved up to 7.5% in May. The last time the metro unemployment rate was above 7.5% was March 1993. (The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release the June metro figures on July 29.)

The May numbers also showed that regional manufacturing employment is in eight consecutive months of decline. According to the preliminary federal figures, manufacturing employment in the Fort Smith metro area has dipped 9.9% in the past 12 months. Regional manufacturing jobs totaled an estimated 22,700 in May, down from 25,200 in May 2008.

The annual average manufacturing employment in the Fort Smith area fell from 31,700 in 1999 to 25,000 in 2008, a decline of more than 21%.

Announced job losses in the first half of 2009 include:
• Maumee, Ohio-based Therma Tru announced it will close its Roland, Okla. plant — which produces fiberglas and steel doors and door components — by fall 2009. The more than 220 employees remaining at the relatively new manufacturing plant will be offered transitional assistance and job search training for all employees. (However, Mountainburg-based C.E. Aerospace announced in June it would invest $6 million in the Therma Tru building to consolidate its jet engine stand production company. The company hopes to employ about 120 by March 2010.)

• Rheem announced in May it would reduce 50 salaried positions from its Fort Smith manufacturing operation as part of a companywide move to cut jobs by offering early retirement packages.

• St. Edward Mercy Health System announced April 15 that 64 full-time jobs will be cut immediately. Hospital officials said a “vast majority” of the jobs cut were non-direct care givers.

• Fort Smith-based Riverside Furniture cut 58 jobs — 43 in Fort Smith and 15 in Russellville — beginning April 27, Evan Breedlove, Riverside’s human resource manager, told The City Wire. Riverside will employ about 150 at its Fort Smith and Russellville operations after April 27, Breedlove said. The company cut about 250 jobs in early January because of slow market conditions in the housing sector.

PREVIOUS TOP 5 BUSINESS/ECONOMY STORIES
No. 5 — The Compass Report
No. 4 — Economic development changes
No. 3 — Intermodal authority