Culpeper unemployment takes biggest jump in a decade

The halt in new housing construction has shut down or significantly reduced operations at four building-related industries in Culpeper, forcing hundreds of local people out of work.

A stressed national economy is taking its toll locally: just take a look at the latest, sharply rising unemployment figures.

The latest figures from August show Culpeper County had a 5.5 percent unemployment rate, according to Peter Mocarski, manager in the local Virginia Employment Commission office.

That’s up nearly 2 percent from last August’s rate of 3.6 percent unemployment and the largest year-over-year jump this decade. It’s also the highest unemployment rate of the five counties in the planning district.

Statewide, the August figures show 4.6 percent unemployment.

Mocarski, who marks his 25th year with VEC this year, attributed a majority of the unemployment hike in Culpeper to the drastic drop in new residential construction, forcing layoffs at companies tied to the industry.

These include Builder’s First Source at the airpark in Elkwood, Structural Systems in the town of Culpeper and Merillat, also located in town, he said.

“The residential building industry is taking it on the chin,” Mocarski said.

Carl Sachs, Culpeper County Director of Economic Development, also said that Stock Building Supply, located near Merillat, ceased its manufacturing operations a couple weeks ago.
Stock Building

Missy Hatley, communications manager with Raleigh-based Stock Building, confirmed via e-mail Friday that the company “restructured the Culpeper location in response to the slowing economy.”

Engineered wood products and trusses previously manufactured in Culpeper “are now delivered from other Stock locations, including Fredericksburg, Manassas and Chesapeake,” she said in the e-mail, though the Culpeper plant continues to employ wall panel and truss designers.

“Stock made every effort to relocate affected associates to other locations where possible,” Hatley said. The company’s Web site lists 27 locations in Virginia.

Hatley did not know how many Culpeper workers were affected in the restructuring.

However, a Stock designer who answered the phone Friday morning said 25 people who worked on the manufacturing side were recently let go.

The man asked that his name not be used in the newspaper, but said he had worked for Stock in Culpeper for close to two decades. He was unsure when and if he and about a dozen other designers would lose their jobs as well.

Other layoffs
Builder’s First Source, a national company that operates a lumber yard and manufactures roof and floor trusses and wall panels at the Culpeper Airpark in Elkwood, also recently laid workers off, Mocarski said.

A woman who answered the phone at the business Friday morning, Laurie, confirmed that there were layoffs a few weeks ago. She declined further comment, referring additional questions to Yvette Patterson in human relations at the Builder’s First Source corporate headquarters in Dallas.

Patterson did not immediately return calls for comment Friday.

Over at Merillat, a.k.a. Masco Corp., manufacturer of kitchen and bathroom cabinets, production has slowed substantially, according to Sachs.

“When things were red hot, they had two shifts and employed about 700 people,” he said.

“I think they are down to one shift now, employing about 250 people,” Sachs said Friday.

Calls to Andy Ballew, plant manager at the Culpeper Masco, were not immediately returned.

According to recent online reports in the Toledo Blade of Ohio, Masco Corp. will shut down its Adrian facility in Michigan sometime late next year and move production to the Culpeper plant and another in Kentucky.

Closure of the Ohio factory will mean the loss of 330 jobs, the Blade reported.

Maryland-based Structural Systems, manufacturer of roof trusses, announced in late June that it was ceasing production at its Culpeper plant and transferring the work to its headquarters in Thurmont.

“We have not closed,” Bruce Gordon, company owner, told the Star-Exponent at the time.

“I don’t use the word ‘closed.’ In our sense, we’ve idled the plant. We fully expect to open the plant back up, and the sooner the better.”

Sachs said he met with the Structural Systems president Wednesday at which time he reiterated his intent to keep the Culpeper facility.

“He is hopeful that when the industry turns around that he will go back into production,” Sachs said, although noting that a portion of large facility is now up for lease.

About 10 or 15 maintenance workers continue to staff the Structural Systems plant along Route 3, he said, compared to the facility’s former local workforce of about 175.

Looking for work
With all the recent layoffs and closures, the Culpeper VEC office has seen its share of new unemployment claims, Mocarski said.

Unfortunately, he said, there are far fewer job openings in the region as companies continue to cut back and manage with barebones staffing levels.

Still, Mocarski kept the situation in perspective, harkening back to the early 1990s when unemployment in Culpeper neared 13 percent.

“That was when we bottomed out,” he said, adding that the economy moves in cycles. “We always managed to recover so I wouldn’t say that we are on our knees by any means.”

But Mocarski recommended, for now, “If you have a job, it’s best to stay there.”

Unemployed Virginia workers can collect state benefits for up to 26 weeks, he said, and the federal government can extend those for another 13 weeks.

“Once a person exhausts their state benefits and exhausts their federal extended benefits, that is all there is right now.”

Outlook
During the frenzy of residential construction in Culpeper of a few years back, thousand of new homes went up.

And it created a lot of jobs, Sachs said.

“So when it slowed down dramatically, it’s pretty natural to understand why some of these other support businesses are slowing down,” he said.

Most of the aforementioned industries employed local people from Culpeper, Madison and Orange counties, Sachs added, saying that explains the rise in local unemployment figures.

“Everyone hopes it bounces back,” he went on, “but this seems like it’s almost the perfect storm brewing — not only the housing issue, but when you look at the gasoline cost and cost of commuting.”

About half of Culpeper’s working population commutes north, Sachs said, but they live here because it’s cheaper.

“But when you’re looking at $4-a-gallon gas to get to work everyday, some of those economic realities start working against you.”

The housing slowdown has had a significant impact on the local economy, he said, and it’s going to take a while to recover.

“I think if you were employed in an industry associated with the housing industry, chances are you’re looking for work, you’ve moved on to something else or you’re hanging on by the skin of your teeth,” Sachs said.

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or .