by Cliff White, Staff Reporter

Region –The terror of last year’s stock market crash may be history to investors, as national markets have since recovered a good portion of their lost value. But the global economic slowdown caused by that panic is still sending aftershocks into central Pennsylvania’s workforce, which absorbed the loss of 447 jobs in February.

Five companies in the region announced mass layoffs in February – two in Huntingdon County, two in Westmoreland County and one in Union County. The layoffs all go into effect in April.

Two hundred workers at Commercial Metals Company (CMC) in New Columbia, Union County, will lose their jobs after the company announced it would seek to exit the joist and deck construction business through sale or closure of its 10 joist and deck plants across the country. The New Columbia facility had produced steel joists that were used in major building projects across the central Pennsylvania region, including Bucknell’s Sojka Pavilion and Penn State’s Bryce Jordan Center, the Lewisburg Wal-Mart, and several churches. In a statement CMC President Murray McClean said the product “has suffered low demand, depressed prices, and shrinking margins – all leading to unacceptable losses.”

Workers, who had been working short weeks, according to an employee who answered the phone at the plant, were notified of the decision to sell or close the plant in an email on Feb. 26 and in an announcement made at the facility on March 1.

Estimates of after-tax losses recorded in the current quarter range from $35 to $50 million, McClean said in the statement. A slowdown in large commercial construction across the United States contributed to the decline.  CMC owns seven joist manufacturing facilities and three deck manufacturing facilities across the country. CMC will announce its second quarter earnings on March 24.

In Westmoreland County, Ceratizit USA Inc., announced Feb. 24 it was centralizing its cutting tool manufacturing facility in Latrobe, moving 69 jobs to its Warren, Mich. plant. The Luxembourg-based company employs nearly 4,000 workers worldwide.

“The move of production into one single location will build a more efficient production structure by consolidating capabilities and competencies,” the company’s statement said. “The hard and soft scrap recycling capabilities, the environmentally friendly local water based spray dried powder operations and the logistic center serving the market in the United States and Canada will all remain in Latrobe. Other departments and business sectors in Latrobe are not affected.”

The Adelphoi Village in Latrobe, a group home for juveniles, will also be closing April 9 and will lay off 70 workers.

More than 100 people lost their jobs in Huntingdon County in two mass layoffs. According to the WARN notice filed with the state Department of Labor and Industry (DLI), AGY Products Inc., a maker of fiberglass yarns and high-strength fiberglass reinforcements, will eliminate 77 positions at their Huntingdon plant. FCI USA will put 37 out of work at their Mt. Union facility, which manufactures electronic connectors. A spokesperson at FCI, Nathalie Varennes, said in an email the company would not comment on the move.

On March 4, the DLI upped their estimate for the number of jobs lost in the state in 2009 to 195,000. An earlier estimate had put the number at 150,000. State unemployment rose to 8.8 percent in December, and although the department said employers added about 10,000 jobs in January, the percentage of unemployed in the state remained unchanged. The state’s 5.56 million jobs on record in January is the fewest since March 1999.