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LISBON -- A company operating at the Columbiana County Port Authority's riverfront industrial park in Wellsville is not planning to lay off any employees despite being on a state list released Thursday.
Every week the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services releases a list of businesses that have submitted layoff and closure notices under the federal WARN Act, a bill enacted in 1988 that requires employers to provide 60-day advance notice of any mass layoffs or plant closings.
In the most recent news release the WARN list included QMax America Inc., the parent company of Anchor Drilling Fluids, which produces drilling fluids for the oil and natural gas drilling industry at the industrial park on the Ohio River.
Anchor Fluids was specifically named on the list, along with another QMax company in Tuscarawas County. The news release indicated 31 employees at the Wellsville facility could be affected, but port authority director Penny Traina checked with company officials and learned that was not true. She said plant manager Harold Willett assured that right now they are not planning any layoffs, the news release not withstanding.
Willett said he was surprised as anyone when contacted by Traina. He called corporate headquarters and was told the company's Ohio operations were not targeted for layoffs.
Other local companies added to the list over the past two months are Columbus McKinnon Corp., which announced on March 10 it was going to close its manufacturing plant located just north of Lisbon on state Route 45. The layoffs were to occur between May 5 and Nov. 1, and the job losses are expected to be permanent, according to letter received by Lisbon Mayor Peter Wilson from Columbus McKinnon,
The other local companies on the list and the number of potential affected employees are:
-- Ventra Salem in Salem, 794 employees; notice filed March 20.
-- Hall China Co. in East Liverpool, 40 employees; notice filed April 30.