Norcold to close all refrigerator manufacturing in the United States

A definite chill has set in for more than 350 Norcold refrigerator manufacturing employees. The cold does not come from the cooling units. Instead, those hundreds of employees will soon be laid off, as Thetford, Norcold’s parent company, said it was moving all US refrigerator production “to other manufacturing facilities owned and operated by a global company. “.

60 days notice

The affected employees all currently work in Ohio, with the lion’s share directly involved in manufacturing in Sydney. The other 100 employees work at Norcold’s chiller manufacturing facility in Gettysburg. All 358 have received 60-day “WARN” notices, required when a company plans layoffs. Thetford’s official statement reads: “The decision to close Norcold’s sites and utilize the company’s global manufacturing capabilities has been difficult, but necessary due to current economic challenges and workforce constraints. permanent.

The timing couldn’t be much worse, with inflation at record highs and the not-so-great end-of-year holiday season for affected working households. Gettysburg government officials are angry at the decision. Local leaders claim that 90% of the village’s tax base is concentrated in the Norcold factory there.

“I don’t mean panic”

Interviewed by local news outlet News Center 7, village council chair Cheryl Byers was candid. “I don’t want to talk about panic because we have good leaders and we will get through this. We always do. But it’s just the biggest, biggest hit we’ve had since we lost our school. It happened in 1972.

Village officials appealed to their U.S. Senator, Sherrod Brown, requesting a meeting to discuss the situation and hopefully get Thetford to change his mind. Brown’s response included, “The choice to put hundreds of Ohioans out of work is not only the wrong one, but it’s shortsighted and I hope Norcold reconsiders.”

Norcold has been building refrigerators in Ohio for 50 years.

What effect will Norcold’s out-of-country transfer have on RV refrigerator consumers? It is currently unclear. Will “importing” refrigerators to the United States from overseas suffer from the same problems that other RV parts have had over the past two years, namely long waits and shortages? This could dampen sales of new recreational vehicles.

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