Mayfield candle factory announces layoff of employees from plant hit by deadly tornado
The Mayfield candle factory destroyed by a tornado Dec. 10 will not reopen and is announcing permanent layoffs.
Mayfield Consumer Products, which operated the plant, said it plans to shift some of the facility’s operations to a new plant in Hickory, which is about six miles north of Mayfield in Graves County.
The candle factory employed 501 people. About half that number will be employed at the new facility, Mayfield Consumer Products said in a Jan. 10 filing under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act.
The law typically requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days’ notice of mass layoffs or plant closings. In this instance, the company was unable to provide advance notice “because the cessation is due to unpredictable natural disaster that occurred on December 10, 2021, and unforeseen business circumstances that followed that disaster,” Plant Manager Michael Staten wrote in the filing with the state.
Staten wrote that “although many employees are being offered a transfer... there will not be room for the entire operation to move to Hickory Point. Therefore, not all employees will be able to transition to that plant. Those employees not offered a transfer to the new facility will be laid off.”
Mayfield Consumer Products said it plans “to accelerate the opening” of the plant at Hickory.
“We will get it up and running as soon as practical,” Staten wrote in the WARN letter.
Eight of the 110 people working in the candle factory when the tornado hit died. Many more were trapped and injured.
