Hatteras slashes 330 workers

1:49 AM Fri 16 Jan 2009 GMT

'Hatteras customers are generally thought to be 'recession proof', but orders are down while consumer confidence is low.' .

Some bad news from abroad, as Hatteras Yachts laid off more than half its workforce at its New Bern plant on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, part of a company-wide restructuring plan to stay afloat.

Hatteras Yachts chairman, Bill Naumann, announced the cuts and said the company is redesigning its business model 'to make us more nimble.' The cuts included employees in management and in production jobs.

Naumann came back to Hatteras in November from retirement to chart a course for change. He announced the restructuring on Wednesday along with Hatteras Collection President and CEO James Meyer after all employees affected had been advised of their status.

'This decision was painful but it was not difficult to figure out what you have to do to survive. We tried to do this decisively, quickly, and with compassion. The bottom line is that over the last year the marine industry of which Hatteras is a part has deteriorated somewhere between 60 to 70 percent. We did what we had to do. Our goal is to salvage this company and reposition it for growth.'

Hatteras once employed about 1,400 people in New Bern. It has made changes to its operation over the last year in an effort to cope, including adding new models and scaling back the workforce.

It closed its Swansboro facility last January, eliminating 200 jobs, and rolled out a 56-foot motor yacht in March. It cut 325 jobs at the New Bern and Edenton plants in August, then in December sold the Albemarle Plant in Edenton with about 100 employees.

The company was established in 1959 and was acquired by Brunswick Corporation in 2001. It continues to produce two brands in New Bern and in Adelanto, Calif. The brands, Cabot and Hatteras Yachts, are sport fishing and motor yachts between 50 and 100 feet long.

Neumann continued: 'Everybody was given some kind of severance package. We did not let anybody go without something. They all knew it was coming.'

Demand is expected to return with a return of consumer confidence, probably when the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits 10,000 and the Standard and Poor's hits 1200 as two key indicators.

'The plan is to maintain a 32-hour work week and ... to try to retain as many skill sets as possible so we can quickly ramp up when that comes,' Naumann said.

by Jeni Bone

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Hatteras slashes 330 workers

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