Hatteras has announce another but significant lay off at their main facility in New Bern, NC. 330 workers in this round. Hatteras has gone from a high of 1400 employees to about 300. Very sad... Hatteras Yachts cuts 330 workers Sue Book January 14, 2009 - 7:45PM Hatteras Yachts laid off more than half the workforce at its New Bern plant on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of a companywide restructuring plan to stay afloat. The company cut 330 workers, said Bill Naumann, Hatteras Yachts chairman, and is redesigning its business model "to make us more nimble." The cuts included employees in management and in production jobs. Naumann came back to Hatteras in November from retirement to chart a course for change. He announced the restructuring on Wednesday along with Hatteras Collection President and CEO James Meyer after all employees affected had been advised of their status. "This is a small town; these people are our friends and neighbors," Naumann said. "This decision was painful but it was not difficult to figure out what you have to do to survive. We tried to do this decisively, quickly, and with compassion." Meyer said that at all levels, employees "took it well. These are class people, gracious people. They are hoping to come back and we're hoping to bring them back." Naumann said, "The bottom line is that over the last year the marine industry of which Hatteras is a part has deteriorated somewhere between 60 to 70 percent. We did what we had to do. Our goal is to salvage this company and reposition it for growth." Hatteras once employed about 1,400 people in New Bern. It has made changes to its operation over the last year in an effort to cope, including adding new models and scaling back the workforce. It closed its Swansboro facility last January, eliminating 200 jobs, and rolled out a 56-foot motor yacht in March. It cut 325 jobs at the New Bern and Edenton plants in August, then in December sold the Albemarle Plant in Edenton with about 100 employees. The company was established in 1959 and was acquired by Brunswick Corporation in 2001. It continues to produce two brands in New Bern and in Adelanto, Calif. The brands, Cabot and Hatteras Yachts, are sport fishing and motor yachts between 50 and 100 feet long. "Unfortunately, making fewer boats will mean fewer workers required and consequently, we have reduced our New Bern work force accordingly," Meyer said. The 330 layoffs this week leave the New Bern plant with 295 to 300 employees. Meyer and Naumann said those who were cut were told individually or in small groups. Meyer said that "due to the size of our workforce now, these were all good employees. In time, we hope to hire every one of them back." Neumann said, "Everybody was given some kind of severance package. We did not let anybody go without something. They all knew it was coming." The packages varied depending on the job and the employees' longevity and were determined by seniority, skill set, and versatility. They included pay and continuation of benefits, some "for a long time," Naumann said. The marine industry is cyclical and has seen significant cutbacks at the New Bern Hatteras plant in 1995 and 2001, Naumann said. The kind of customers who buy Hatteras Yachts often "have the money but lose the will to spend the money in bad times," he said. Demand is expected to return with a return of consumer confidence, probably when the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits 10,000 and the Standard and Poor's hits 1200 as two key indicators. "The plan is to maintain a 32-hour work week and ... to try to retain as many skill sets as possible so we can quickly ramp up when that comes," Naumann said. An order of employee recall will depend on demand. Meyer said that "our business will come back as fast as it left us." He said that "when an industry falls off the cliff you can't take out cost fast enough" to avoid losing money in the short term but the restructuring is coming quickly enough to keep the company solvent for comeback.
This type of contraction is not limited to Hatteras. Manufacturers of watches, shoes, aircraft, RV's and cork screws are laying off. In the past 50% of the goods consumed were purchased by people who qualified for "terms". Trading in the 20K SUV they owed $33K on and no money down financing $58K on a very nice $45K ride. Now that these terms (consumers) have been (rightfully so) excluded and the qualified consumers have taken a wait a see stance consuming is at a stand still. New boats, all, are suffering. Used boats, with few exceptions, are changing hands at very low values.
It is very sad to hear that Hatteras is laying off that many people. I spent a week in New Bern, and there are NO other jobs to speak of in that town or for about an hour around it. Aside from a few mom and pop stores and a few hotels, Hatteras pretty much supported the entire local economy by employing so many people.
A little ray of hope. There is a small yard in England that makes gaff cutters called Cornish Crabbers. They went into administration but a guy who bought one earlier in the year had so many compliments from fellow sailors he bought the company and restarted production. Light at the end of the tunnel?
