NEW SALISBURY, Ind. – Child Craft Industries, a family owned company that has made cribs and other children’s furniture for nearly a century, may lay off most of its remaining work force by fall 2016, a company official said.

Mark Suvak, Child Craft vice president and chief financial officer, said Tuesday the company is working “desperately” to avoid laying off most of the plant’s 55 workers by 2016, but that those job cuts are a possibility by September 2016.


Child Craft, founded in Salem in 1911, makes wooden baby cribs, changing tables and children’s bedroom furniture that’s sold through Costco, Target and other retailers.

Suvak said the company had moved its furniture production to Asia and Honduras in recent years and the remaining workers at the New Salisbury plant about 15 miles west of Louisville, Ky., perform light finishing work on products, packaging and distribution.

“All of our production right now is coming primarily from Asia or Honduras and that continues to be the plan given that it’s cost prohibitive to manufacturer in the state,” he said.

Last month, company executives reapplied for displaced-worker benefits Child Craft first received through the Indiana Department of Workforce Development following a flash flood in Salem that caused more than $10 million in damage to its equipment and inventory.

The company obtained $8.9 million in federal loans to help relocate to New Salisbury, where the shutdown of another furniture maker, Keller Manufacturing Co., provided a factory.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)