Furniture Factory Closes, Jobs Go Abroad

Aug. 14 -- Workers fell silent as the last piece of furniture rolled off the assembly line at the Hooker Furniture factory in Kernersville, N.C. They had already prepared for the pulling of the plug.

The Hooker plant shut down last month, and, like the family of a dying senior, its staff had acquiesced to the end, as if jobs and factories — even whole industries — like men and women, were born to die.

"I can't imagine that it would feel any worse than it does today to come into this factory and see 250 dedicated employee-owners that have done everything we've asked them to do," Hooker CEO Paul Toms said at the time.

"Every time we've asked them to step up, they've done it. And we're still closing it. I feel like we've let these folks down, and I don't know what we'd do different."

Giant Sucking Sound?

Profits at the Hooker Furniture company have, in fact, continued to grow in recent years, though largely by outsourcing to cheaper manufacturers abroad — who this year accounted for about one-third of Hooker products. American jobs may go overseas, but there they fetch greater corporate profit for American companies at home.

According to Toms, the surge in foreign competition from low-wage nations like China — coupled with a wider downturn in the national economy — threatens to pull the whole American furniture industry into a fight for survival.

"It's unlike anything I've seen in my 21 years in the industry," Toms said. "A lot of plants have closed, people have been sent home, and it really has come quicker than anybody expected. I think it's hard to say, three, four, five years from now, what will this industry look like domestically."

The Kernersville plant, for example, reduced its materials costs 10 percent in the last two years, but "even with that, we don't seem to be competitive with these import products that are coming in for a fraction, 60 percent, of the cost we can produce them," Hooker President Doug Williams explained.