FORT SMITH — Rheem Manufacturing Co. said Thursday that it would lay off 75 to 100 hourly employees, effective Jan. 11, as part of seasonal staffing adjustments at its Fort Smith plant.

“Today's adjustment is consistent with annual staffing changes at this time of year,” said Lindsey Ford, a spokesman at Rheem’s headquarters in Atlanta.

Even so, the layoffs will affect at least 10 percent of the operation’s hourly work force.

As of this week, the plant had 708 hourly workers, said Scott Graham, president of Local 7893 of the United Steel Workers of America, which represents Rheem’s Fort Smith hourly workers. The layoffs will affect the least-senior employees, he said.

“You hate to see anybody lose their job,” Graham said. “Hopefully it is just seasonal and they will be called back in the near future.”

Rheem would not say how many workers it employs at the Fort Smith facility, which makes gas furnaces and air conditioning products. The plant announced seasonal layoffs in 2010 of about 100 workers and 60 seasonal layoffs in 2011, Ford said. “This number varies slightly each year based upon seasonal market conditions,” she said.

Any manufacturing layoffs are particularly troubling for Fort Smith, which has seen a 15 percent decline in manufacturing jobs since 2007, according to an analysis by the Center for Business Research and Economic Development at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith. Fort Smith’s Whirlpool Corp. plant with more than 900 workers shut down in June, after employing 4,600 as recently as 2006.

Third-quarter unemployment in the Fort Smith area was 8 percent, compared with 7.1 percent for the quarter statewide, according to center director Kermit Kuehn.

Rheem announced in June 2011 that it would move some production and 250 jobs from Fort Smith to a plant in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The Rheem spokesman said Thursday’s layoffs were not related to the Nuevo Laredo announcement.

She also said Rheem has no plans for following in Whirlpool’s footsteps.

“Rheem’s Fort Smith plant is an integral part of our manufacturing footprint and we have no plans to close the facility,” Ford said.

Rheem, based in Atlanta and founded in 1927, is privately held.

Business, Pages 25 on 12/14/2012