Tuesday, September 30, 2008

More pink slips expected at DeFehr Furniture

Winnipeg's DeFehr Furniture says it needs to trim its operations while it restructures, but the company has not yet revealed how many employees will be laid off.

Late Monday, the Winnipeg company announced it had applied for credit protection while it completes a restructuring process.

CEO Andrew DeFehr said DeFehr's Canadian market has struggled over the past year, as the Canadian dollar has gained strength globally, leaving the company too big for the current market.

"What this will mean is some additional temporary layoffs and terminations with the current staff," he said.

But DeFehr is confident the company's restructuring will work.

"It'll largely depend on the support of the Canadian retailer and the consumers that want good-quality, Canadian-made goods," he said.

"Right now we have very good support from our customers and they're very much wanting to work with us and need our product, so it's just a matter of getting down to the right size for the level of business that we have."

DeFehr announced in early September that the company would close a plant in Morden, Man., and move much of the company's workforce and equipment to its large manufacturing plant on Furniture Park in Winnipeg, which would run at a higher volume.

The move was expected to kill 65 jobs in Morden, and affect more than 200 at the company's Pandora Avenue plant. As many as 30 employees from the Pandora plant were expected to lose their jobs.

The company still has a good backlog of orders that will keep it in business, DeFehr said.



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