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The economy of Williams County, Ohio, is taking another blow. Midwest Stamping LLC told the state that it has cut 198 employees, effective Friday.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the plant, which supplies the auto industry, is shutting down.
Company officials couldn’t be reached Friday. But Midwest’s notice to the state said the company was unable in recent months to get new business or obtain loans to keep operating. It was unable to give Ohio officials and employees more notice of the layoffs because that would have doomed those efforts, Midwest’s notice to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said.
“When Midwest Stamping’s efforts to obtain additional capital and business failed, it had little choice but to agree to sell the company to Matcor,” the notice said.
Matsu Group, a company headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, owns Matcor Automotive, which among other sectors, does metal stamping.
A woman who answered the phone at Matsu wouldn’t say whether Matcor had bought Midwest Stamping, but she said it was unlikely company officials would be available Friday because they were closing a facility. Asked whether the facility is in Edgerton, she said that is “very possible.”
Edgerton Village Administrator Dale Mathys didn’t know Friday whether Midwest Stamping is closing.
“I know it sold,” he said. “But that’s all I know.”
Diamond Zimmerman, coordinator of the Williams County Economic Development Corp., also said she didn’t know whether the plant was closing Friday.
Companies sometimes buy and shut down competitors to gain market share.
Williams County had the worst unemployment rate of Ohio’s 88 counties from April through July. By September, it had the state’s fifth-worst rate, at 14.1 percent.
With a labor force of fewer than 21,000, the loss of almost 200 jobs will be felt more in Williams County than in a more populous area.
In September, Metaldyne Corp. said it was laying off 50 of the 171 employees at its plant in Edon, eight miles north of Edgerton. And after Fleetwood Enterprises Inc. declared bankruptcy in March, it shut down a travel-trailer plant in Edgerton, costing 175 workers jobs.
Zimmerman said her agency is taking several steps to adjust to the changing economy.
One is an application for a $100,000 federal grant to chart a new course for the county’s economy. Zimmerman said it’s heavily dependent on the automotive sector, and the economic-development corporation wants to look at ways to diversify.
“We’re doing everything we can,” Zimmerman said.
