by By Quintin Ellison, QELLISON@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM
ROBBINSVILLE – The last manufacturing plant surviving in

Graham County will lay off 200 members of its 450-employee work force.

“It’s going to have a big impact because we don’t have anything else,” said Lou Jackson, a nurse at a health clinic that is operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for tribal members living in Graham County. “If people want a job they are going to have to travel.”

Stanley Furniture Co., which makes wood furniture and is the largest private employer in Graham County, told employees Tuesday. Spokeswoman Robin Campbell said the cuts are necessary because of an industry-wide slowdown and lower sales.

Campbell said the layoffs are confined to the company’s Robbinsville facility, about 100 miles west of Asheville. Stanley Furniture has three other plants, one in eastern North Carolina and two in Virginia. The company is headquartered in Stanleytown, Va.

Foreign competition and other factors have dramatically reduced employment in North Carolina’s furniture industry, for decades one of the state’s most important industries.

The number of furniture manufacturing jobs in the state fell from 80,101 in 1995 to 56,806 in 2012, according to state figures.

Graham County Manager Sandra Smith said company representatives told her the layoffs would start Feb. 12 and continue over a two-week period.

“Two hundred people might not sound like much, but when you realize we’re a county of 8,000, that’s a lot,” she said.

The company said it plans to work with the state Employment Security Com-mission to provide career counseling, job search assistance and other help.