Industry Pain Continues

Quarterly results from some of the major Office Furniture manufacturers signifies the "pain" the office furniture industry continues to go through.

Steelcase the largest North American office furniture company reported that sales fell 33.1% for the latest quarter, and that they intend to layoff an additional 200 white collar workers (link).

Herman Miller reported a sales drop of 38.4% for the latest quarter (link). In a separate release, Herman Miller reported the purchase of Health Care manufacturer Nemschoff , which will further strengthen Herman Miller's product offering for the Health Care industry (link).

Allsteel's response to the current industry slowdown has been to "ask" their workforce (excluding manufacturing and customer service) to take a "week's vacation" immediately prior to the 4th of July. Essentially a nice way of furloughing their workforce for a week to reduce costs.