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by Jim Phillips
T he downward-spiraling economic conditions continued to negatively impact spinners in early March. Orders were down for some spinners by 30 percent or more - and what business is coming in is significantly shorter than usual.
"We're still kicking, but everybody wants something cheap. We're trying to run a full schedule, but we stood for about a week's equivalent last month," said one Georgia spinner. "We're running okay right now, but it's still to be determined how the rest of the month will go. All the business is very short. Our customers are ordering just what they absolutely have to have and nothing more."
Said another spinner: "The pipeline is terrible and all of our orders are small. Our customers call us and they want their product right now. We're running all kinds of products just to stay afloat."
One North Carolina spinner reported similar business conditions."Business isn't what it was, I can tell you that. We've had a rude awakening since about November," he said. "We've had significantly less forward business written, and we've had some major credit issues. Our customers haven't been able to pay us, which has put a tremendous amount of pressure on our cash flow. It's been a double whammy to have to manage curtailment and cash flow at the same time."
"We're running about 75 percent of the volume we had at the same time last year," said another Carolinas spinner. "We haven't had to have any stoppages or furloughs, but we have downsized. We've used a number of temporary employees in the past, and we've stopped using that service."
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