Far fewer furniture jobs in mountains

ASHEVILLE – The number of furniture manufacturing jobs in Western North Carolina has dropped by nearly two-thirds in this decade as cheap foreign imports flood the market.


The number of furniture manufacturing jobs fell from about 7,400 in 2000 to under 2,500 in the third quarter in 2016, according to state figures. Those numbers are worse than the state as a whole, where the number of workers has fallen by about one-third since the beginning of the decade.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.