Ammo shelves are bare in many stores, but ATK/Speer is laying off Employees????? What gives, seems like they would be expanding

[idahooutdoors]

Ammo shelves are bare in many stores, but ATK/Speer is laying off Employees????? What gives, seems like they would be expanding to meet demand, not cutting back??? http://www.klewtv.com/news/local/37309514.html

[idahooutdoors]

LEWISTON - ATK CCI/Speer in Lewiston is cutting about 8 percent of their workforce.

In mid-December, the company announced an indefinite period of downtime for a number of workers at the Lewiston plant. Now ATK will lay off 70 to 80 Lewiston employees in what management calls a reduction in force.

ATK spokesperson Amanda Covington said the affected employees were notified Thursday.

Covington said it's not the economy, that the company is still seeing a healthy market for ammunition sales. She said it goes back to a 2006 hiring boost, which was implemented to cover a backlog of orders for the growing company. Covington said they are finally caught up on that backlog, and no longer need those employees.

Newly-elected Republican U.S. Senator Jim Risch said Thursday he is concerned about the loss of jobs.

In a statement Risch said, "It is disappointing to hear that over 100 people are losing their jobs at CCI/Speer in Lewiston. It is imperative that the new Congress and President work quickly on ways to improve our country's business climate. We must find ways to keep companies like CCI/Speer growing and their workers employed. They are an excellent local employer and we need to move swiftly to keep these jobs that provide the income for many families in the Lewiston area."

[Jim in Mo]

Sounds fishy to me. When ammo is once again available maybe I'll avoid ATK products.

[DakotaMan]

I hate to say it because I don't know the facts but it might have something to do with the fierce and growing competition in high performance and accurate bullets. I don't find myself ordering too many Speer bullets anymore and I used to shoot a lot of them. Sierra, Berger, Barnes and Hornady are selling a lot of mighty fine bullets and new competitors are showing up all the time.

[CableGuy81]

I think a lot of companies are using the economic down turn as an excuse to trim the fat. Whether it's necessary or not. They see it as a good excuse to make more $ with less work force. And i suppose its possible their trying to prevent from totally going out of business in the future.

[Old Rotorhead]

I like CCI/Speer ammo a lot, yet I can only find it in "specialty shops" at exorbitant prices. Ammunition in general is in short supply. Despite the claim that they are letting go people required for an earlier build-up, this does not make sense. By the way, you are not paranoid if someone is really chasing you (or trying to take away your guns and ammo).