STUTTGART — ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
For decades, Lennox Industries provided stability to this small community largely affectedby the ups and downs of the rice industry.
Even when the rice business was suffering, the Lennox heating and air-conditioning manufacturing plantprovided hundreds of jobs for Arkansas County residents in Stuttgart, commonly referred to as the rice and duck capital of the world.
So when Lennox laid off400 workers between November 2008 and last February it was no surprise that the county’s unemployment rate ballooned to No. 1 in the state, an unenviable title it has heldsince March.
This year, Arkansas County’s unemployment rate has been between 14 percent and 15.8 percent, roughly twice the state average.
Stephen Bell, executive vice president of the Stuttgart Chamber of Commerce, said he’s confident that the county will lose its No. 1 ranking inunemployment in January, when Lennox plans to hire back 75 employees.
“It just goes to show that if you’re a small town [and county] and you rely on three industries and one goes through a tough time, it really affects your unemployment rate,” Bell said.
Arkansas County produces more rice than any other county in the country, and the area is considered a Mecca for duck hunters.
In Stuttgart, the three major industries are Riceland Foods with about 1,000 workers, Producers Rice Mill Inc. with about 600 workers and Lennox Industries with about 700 workers, said Bell and Skip King, general manager of operations at Lennox.
King said the Lennox plant, which opened in Stuttgart in 1979, had a better-than-expected fourth quarter this year and will need additional workers to produce a new line of redesigned products.
He said the company would re-evaluate in March or April to see if even more employees are needed to work through the company’s busy season, which is Marchthrough September.
In summer 2008, the company employed 1,300 workers, 600 more than it employs today, King said.
“We’re very optimistic and hopeful the forecast for next year will be more favorable,” King said. “We had an influx of orders in the fourth quarter that were unanticipated, and we have a few good signals things are going to turn around for the better.”
Earlier this year, about 170 former Lennox workers filed for unemployment at the Arkansas Workforce Center in Stuttgart, said Christy Levey, a career consultant at the office.
“It’s good news for everyone that Lennox is hiring again,” Levey said. “A lot of people don’t understand the trickle-down effect. The people who get laid off don’t go to Wal-Mart as much and don’t go out to eat as much, so those businesses suffer, too.”
John Walden, a Lennox employee for three years before being laid off in February, said he has been collecting unemployment for 10 months and struggles to provide for his wife and four children.
His home is paid for, so that helped. But he has a heart problem, and medical bills are stacking up.
“It’s been tough,” Walden said.
Walden said he was one of the 75 workers called back to Lennox.
King said employees who were laid off then called back to work will be paid the same hourly rate they were getting before.
That’s good news for Walden, who feared the company would bring him back at the starting salary of $9 an hour rather than the $13 an hour he was making before the layoffs.
F r o m O c t o b e r 2 0 0 8 through October 2009, the most recent month for unemployment rate statistics, Arkansas County had the highest unemployment rate for each month except February, when Mississippi County edged it, said Kimberly Friedman, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services.
Arkansas County’s annual unemployment rate in 2008 was 9.2 percent. In 2007, it was 8.4 percent.
Almost half of Arkansas County’s 19,000 residents live in Stuttgart, population 8,971. Arkansas County’s secondlargest city is DeWitt, population 3,254.
DeWitt Mayor Aubrey McGhee said DeWitt has two major manufacturing plants, Belleville Shoe South Inc. and Adams Fertilizer Equipment Manufacturing.
Together, the two plants employ about 500 workers, said David Horton, president of the DeWitt Chamber of Commerce.
“Things in DeWitt are pretty much holding their own,” McGhee said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 19 on 12/27/2009