Westport’s Paper Source furloughs staff

Westport stationery store Paper Source is putting its seven employees on temporary, unpaid furloughs as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

The furloughs “will continue indefinitely, but are intended to be temporary and last less than six months,” the store’s vice president of human resources, Rhonda Dutmer, wrote to the Connecticut Department of Labor and First Selectman Jim Marpe.

“We are taking these employment actions because of COVID-19-related business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable,” Dutmer wrote. “We would like to have given more notice of this action, but were unable to do so because of how quickly our operations were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s pandemic declaration on March 11th, the President’s declaration of a national emergency on March 13th, and other related governmental announcement and actions.”

Paper Source opened in 2013 at 100 Post Road East.