Idaho Veneer announces further layoffs

POST FALLS — The employment situation at Idaho Veneer is a mixed bag, but leaning more toward worsening.

The Post Falls company has shut down its sawmill and planer indefinitely, affecting 17 employees, co-owner John Malloy said.

Malloy said the sawmill at Ceda-Pine Veneer in Samuels north of Sandpoint is also scheduled to close at the end of the week, affecting another 14 people.

Meanwhile, Idaho Veneer has called back three “machine centers” to its veneer mill, putting 15 of the 40 employees who were laid off in early January temporarily back to work.

“There has been some shifting going on,” Malloy said. “Some people have been called back, but the economic situation has worsened. We won’t be running any lumber in the near future.”

The company’s veneer mill suffered the initial layoff while the sawmill continued to run.

Malloy said that while an export order has allowed some employees to come back, he only expects it to be for a week or two.

“We know only day-to-day how long the ones that are back will stay,” Malloy said.

The veneer mill at Ceda-Pine Veneer remains closed.

Malloy said the shifting is expected to continue and will be driven by the market.

“The lumber is typically run through its final processing at Post Falls, through the dry kiln and planer, so of those crews in Post Falls which are laid off now, some eight-or-10-or-so will come back in a couple weeks to wrap up the work-in-process, after which, they too, will be laid off again, indefinitely,” Malloy said.

January’s layoff was the largest in the 55-year history of the family-owned company, among the survivors of a dwindling timber industry in North Idaho.

The company sells veneer to window, door and furniture manufacturers and has domestic customers as well as in Asia and Europe.

At its peak, Idaho Veneer employed about 200 people in the early 1980s when it also made plywood. Since then, the company has made changes in products and has had occasional layoffs due to seasonal conditions.