Napoleon Group, one of the region’s largest private employers, has made more staffing cuts by announcing approximately 100 employees have been temporarily laid off.
This news comes less than two months after 80 workers were previously laid off by Napoleon from the three manufacturing facilities the company has around the north end of the city. At the time, company president Mike Tzimas said staffing reductions were something Napoleon had done for decades as they adjusted to post-summer market.
On Wednesday, Tzimas said the latest layoffs are in a similar vein.
“It really is tied into that, but it's a little more on the macroeconomic side," he said. "When we had done more of our seasonal adjustment back in September, we got together with all of our partners and sales channels, and got a good understanding of just how much inventory they had in the pipeline and what is their projected sales for next year."
In a news release, Napoleon said “all impacted associates are recent additions to the company hired in 2021 and later and were brought into Napoleon when demand, largely resulting from COVID-19, required a significant and abnormal increase in manufacturing.”
Tzimas said over-production has been an issue with many businesses and now he says there's a corrective measure being taken.
“A lot of retailers over-ordered — you may have heard about that with big box stores — so there is a lot of inventory in the system,” Tzimas said. “Therefore, there is a bit of an over-correction needed to rebalance our production side.”
Napoleon says it will honour employee benefits and also plans to recall affected workers at the earliest possible date.
When asked about the timing and being just under a month from the holidays, Tzimas said he understood those concerns.
“Timing for these things is never good, particularly as we get closer to the holidays,” he said. “Ultimately, for the sustainability of the business and for the future, we looked at the details and needed to unfortunately execute this at this time. It is actually what led to the gap from September until now, as we were making sure we had everything double checked before having to take a measure like this.”
Tzimas said he doesn’t anticipate anymore layoffs and added part of the decision to lay off employees instead of permanent dismissal was “for the potential of bringing people back.”
Napoleon is North America's largest privately owned manufacturer of quality fireplaces, grills, outdoor living, heating and cooling products.
