Georgia-Pacific closing plywood plant in Emporia: 554 jobs to be lost

The already struggling Greensville-Emporia economy is taking another big blow, with the news on Friday that Georgia-Pacific is closing its plywood facility in Emporia, putting 554 people out of jobs.

The local economy in Greensville-Emporia, with a 61.6 percent Black population, according to U.S. Census estimates, had already taken a massive hit last year with the sudden closure of the Boar’s Head deli meat plant that employed in the range of 500 people after a listeria outbreak that killed 10 people and led to 59 hospitalizations across a wide swath of the U.S.

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ICYMI

• Boar’s Head plant linked to fatal Listeria outbreak will close permanently
• Boar’s Head Listeria outbreak linked to 10 deaths, 59 hospitalizations in 19 states

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According to the latest figures from the Virginia Employment Commission, the Greensville-Emporia labor market area had the state’s highest unemployment rate, by far, in March, at 7.3 percent; for reference, the Wise-Dickenson-Norton LMA was second, at 4.5 percent.

Projecting the rate for May, when those numbers are made publicly available at some point several weeks out, the unemployment rate in the Greensville-Emporia LMA should spike above 16 percent.

“You just lost Boar’s Head and lost GP. Ain’t gonna be nothing left here,” Jason Pollick, a millwright at the plant, told WTVR-TV6 in Richmond, predicting that the shuttering of the Georgia-Pacific plant will “cripple” the Greensville-Emporia area.

Georgia-Pacific, in a news release on its company website, cited “housing affordability challenges and a 30-year low in existing home sales” as the motivations for the decision to close its Emporia facility.

“Many of our plywood products are used in repair and remodel projects, which often occur when homes change ownership. To align with current demand, we are reducing our production capacity,” the company said.