A pioneering manufacturer of commercial pizza ovens in New Rochelle and a 35-year-old maker of rechargeable radio batteries in Mount Kisco are among the companies caught in an upswell of business closings in Westchester County, where unemployment in January reached its highest level since 1992.
In New Rochelle, 80 union and salaried employees at Bakers Pride Oven Co. Inc. over the next several months will join the county”™s unemployed ranks, which stood at 33,600 workers in January, an increase of 5,400 workers since December, according to the state Department of Labor. The parent company of Bakers Pride, Standex International Corp. in Salem, N.H., is phasing out manufacturing operations at the Pine Street plant by Aug. 1.
Founded in New York City in the mid-1940s, the Bakers Pride company calls itself the inventor of the modern factory-built, gas-fired pizza oven that brought what had been a minor ethnic food into the mass market in the U.S. The company produces commercial baking, cooking and pizza equipment for the food service, pizza and supermarket industries worldwide.
Bakers Pride was acquired by Standex in 2007 as part of its acquisition of APW Wyott, a food service equipment manufacturer based in Dallas. It has operated as part of the Standex Food Service Equipment Group, the sixth-largest North American supplier of restaurants, food retailers and institutions. The group operates eight other manufacturing facilities.
In February 2008, 100 members of Local 888 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union staged a one-week strike at the New Rochelle plant in a dispute over terms of a new three-year contract.
Standex officials in New Hampshire said a weak restaurant industry left the Bakers Pride plant operating below capacity to the point where it is no longer self-sufficient. With the closing, the manufacturing of Baker”™s Pride products will be consolidated into other Standex food service operations.
“While this is a necessary action considering the current economic environment, we are deeply disappointed by the effect this will have on some of our employees,” Standex officials said when announcing the closing.
The New Rochelle facility will continue to be used for customer and administrative support and as a regional distribution center serving customers previously supplied by the Pine Street plant.
In Mount Kisco, 52 union and salaried employees will lose their jobs this spring when Multiplier Industries Corp., a maker of batteries and chargers for two-way radios, ceases operations at its 135 Radio Circle Drive plant.
Acquired in 2007 by Europe-based Uniross Batteries Corp., Multiplier last November was merged with two other Uniross-owned battery companies to form AmperGen, based in Woburn, Mass.
Mark Dockser, senior vice president at AmperGen, last week said “a very competitive market and the economy made it very difficult for us” to continue New York operations. “The cost pressures were very intense,” he said.
Dockser said much of the manufacturing done in Mount Kisco will be relocated to an AmperGen factory in Tijuana, Mexico, “to give ourselves a more competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
Dockser said the Mount Kisco facility will close by the end of April.
Westchester”™s unemployment rate was 6.8 percent in January, a jump of 2.2 percent from January 2008. An additional 11,000 Westchester residents were jobless in January compared to a year earlier, according to the state Labor Department.
Unemployment in the county likely will continue to rise this spring with the closings of three large employers in retail, manufacturing and health care.
In White Plains, Fortunoff, the jewelry and home furnishings retailer, last month said 181 store employees will be laid off as the bankrupt company is liquidated. The Long Island-based company”™s store liquidation sales began in late February.
In Yonkers, 188 employees will be out of work when Precision Valve Corp. shuts down its Nepperhan Avenue manufacturing operations by late May.
In Valhalla, Westchester Medical Center expects to trim $40 million from its anticipated budget deficit this year with the April 1 closing of Taylor Care Center, the skilled-nursing residence on the hospital campus where 171 health care and support employees will be out of work. Sodexco Inc., the Long Island-based food and nutrition services contractor at the Taylor center, has said it will lay off 45 employees with the closing.
In a five-month period through January, New York state lost 125,000 private-sector jobs, said state Deputy Commissioner for Employment Security Nancy Dunphy. The recent job loss amounts to about 30 percent of the number of private-sector jobs the state gained from January 2003 through August 2008, she said.
Compared with January 2008, New York this January lost 7,200 private-sector jobs.
“It”™s bad out there and it”™s getting worse every month,” Dunphy said at a news conference last week in White Plains to announce an estimated $2.1-billion infusion of federal money into the state”™s unemployment benefits pot as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. “Many New Yorkers are waking up in the morning absolutely frightened that they”™re going to lose their jobs when they get to work,” Dunphy said.
The statewide unemployment rate in January was 7.6 percent, up from 5.3 percent in January 2008. The national jobless rate in January was 8.5 percent, a 3.1 percent increase from the same month a year ago.
Westchester had the 10th lowest January unemployment rate of the state”™s 62 counties. Putnam County, at 6.2 percent, had the state”™s second-lowest rate, though unemployment in the county was 2 percent higher than in January 2008. Rockland County, at 6.4 percent, ranked third-lowest in the state, though joblessness there also rose nearly 2 percent from the same month last year.
To the north in the Hudson Valley region, Orange County had a 7.4 percent unemployment rate in January, a 2.3 percent jump from January 2008. Dutchess County”™s jobless rate rose to 7.3 percent in January from 4.9 percent a year earlier. Ulster County, at 7.8 percent, had the highest January jobless rate in the region, up from 5.7 percent in January 2008.
