It hasn’t been an easy year for manufacturers and their workers.
Manufacturing orders in the U.S. have been sluggish this year according to national purchasing managers’ indices, leading to uncertainty in the industry as companies cut their production volumes and ran down their existing inventories.
The stagnant state of the industry also led some manufacturers to make the difficult decision to close their facilities in an effort to cut costs.
“For every company looking to hire there’s a company looking to reduce headcount,” Timothy Fiore, chair of the Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, said following the release of the ISM’s November Purchasing Managers’ Index.
ISM’s November PMI showed the industry is still in economic contraction, where it’s stayed for months, causing companies to cut costs and in many cases, headcount.
Read on for some of the major facility closures that took place this year, from popular food brands like Krispy Kreme to medical device makers and defense contractors.