Ethan Allen announces layoffs, including many in Danbury

I wonder what's Farooq Kathwari's bonus this year.

No big surprise. Over the years, Ethan Allen has allowed quality and customer service slip but they still charge the premium price. That does not work well these days.

shut the place down.. Overpriced C-RAP.. Plus the food there at the weddings stinks. Shut it, shut it, shut it down!

I worked there in 1976, Mr Ancell is spinning in his grave.

Gee, I guess no one can afford to pay $25,000 for a dining room set. What a shock huh?

What about the decorators? I can't imagine that they will escape the sword...

The same thing happened when I worked there in the 80's. They didn't want to publicize the fact their business was down, so they would "discreetly" layoff people a few at a time. Fridays came to be known as "Black Friday" because you never knew who would be getting the axe. I guess nothing has changed there. They still enjoy keeping their employees in the dark. Of all the places I've worked, good old EA was the most negative environment of them all. I'm glad I left when I did.

I was there for this. It is very unfortunate but it is also a common occurance with most businesses these days. Times are tough and I wish the ex Ea employees all the best. No one is safe in this economy.

client_number_9 wrote:

they make all that **** overseas...nothing here...food stinks too...

Ethan Allen has manufacturing in the US WTF are you talking about

Ex EA Employee wrote:

The same thing happened when I worked there in the 80's. They didn't want to publicize the fact their business was down, so they would "discreetly" layoff people a few at a time. Fridays came to be known as "Black Friday" because you never knew who would be getting the axe. I guess nothing has changed there. They still enjoy keeping their employees in the dark. Of all the places I've worked, good old EA was the most negative environment of them all. I'm glad I left when I did.

Except today is Tuesday and not Friday

Nemesys wrote:

"hey what happened to all the comments
about the deadbeat guy being evicted for not paying rent for 9 months"
Pete the proxy racist got the thread taken down with all of his comments about black people.
Don't worry, though. Topix finally banned the creep.

There IS a God!

Too bad the NewsTimes didn't publicize its OWN layoffs last year when they laid off over 60 people themselves from the Circulation and Classified Depts. I was one of them, and was out of work for over 9 months before finding another job.
Over 250 resumes which got me about 16 job interviews and only one job offer - which I accepted, at a $7,000 a year pay CUT.

If the guy talking about EA manufacturing did his homework, he would see that 80% of EA product is imported nowadays.Kathwai himself has said"I would like to run distribution and sales here in the US and not have any manufacturing based here." In short he wants to contract buy his product abroad and sell it here like the Wal Mart of furniture

60% of the furniture is still made in the US -- from the lumber to the final goods, right here. What other furn. co of its size can say the same?

It was a horrible day at ethan allen. To me, there are options to avoid such hard times in an economy such as this, but it would affect all employees as a whole, such as taking a blanket reduction to keep everyone's job. I think Employment is the best way to end this recession or depression (whatever it is coming to). Instead, they lay off all the worker bees to save all the people at the top. And I guarantee you that his bonus was good. Along with the VPs and such. I am sure they are getting their share as well.

Isawithappen wrote:

It was a horrible day at ethan allen. To me, there are options to avoid such hard times in an economy such as this, but it would affect all employees as a whole, such as taking a blanket reduction to keep everyone's job. I think Employment is the best way to end this recession or depression (whatever it is coming to). Instead, they lay off all the worker bees to save all the people at the top. And I guarantee you that his bonus was good. Along with the VPs and such. I am sure they are getting their share as well.

not only that, some of the bodies were not even cold yet, and the remaining employees were jockeying for position to take advantage of someone else's misfortune. Very sad!

Anon wrote:

If the guy talking about EA manufacturing did his homework, he would see that 80% of EA product is imported nowadays.Kathwai himself has said"I would like to run distribution and sales here in the US and not have any manufacturing based here." In short he wants to contract buy his product abroad and sell it here like the Wal Mart of furniture

Wow, All the people that have no clue on the numbers post garbage like this and people actually believe it. If you did your homework you would know that at this time 62 percent of EA Casegoods and Upholstery are made right here in the USA. This is expected to rise to 69 percent in the next year. Add in the small accessory items and that number is already 69 percent. This was all reported on January 29th earnings call. Listen to the transcript. Stop spewing negativity if you don't have the facts to back it up.

Ex-NewsTimes Employee wrote:

Too bad the NewsTimes didn't publicize its OWN layoffs last year

if I remember correctly, they did have an article about layoffs at the paper. Glad to hear you found another job.

Isawithappen wrote:

It was a horrible day at ethan allen. To me, there are options to avoid such hard times in an economy such as this, but it would affect all employees as a whole, such as taking a blanket reduction to keep everyone's job. I think Employment is the best way to end this recession or depression (whatever it is coming to). Instead, they lay off all the worker bees to save all the people at the top. And I guarantee you that his bonus was good. Along with the VPs and such. I am sure they are getting their share as well.

Except that when you do across the board pay cuts, you have an entire workforce of unhappy employees rather than a much smaller group of unhappy ex-employees. And then your star employees will leave because they are stars, they want to be paid well and they can get jobs even in a down economy. So what are you left with? A company full of mediocre, unhappy workers.

NFer wrote:

<quoted text>
Except that when you do across the board pay cuts, you have an entire workforce of unhappy employees rather than a much smaller group of unhappy ex-employees. And then your star employees will leave because they are stars, they want to be paid well and they can get jobs even in a down economy. So what are you left with? A company full of mediocre, unhappy workers.

I think this day and age, it would be hard for anyone to take a pay cut. It wouldn't be easy. But for those people working for a company based in retail, everyone who still has a job appreciates it because of the economic situation. And besides, not many companies in that field are hiring right now, so there aren't many opportunities for people to leave and go somewhere else. Almost every retail company is laying off large amounts of people. And a couple large retail companies have gone under in the last year.