{"id":52986,"date":"2020-07-01T04:20:39","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T10:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stoneage-lays-off-12-employees\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:02:11","slug":"stoneage-lays-off-12-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/stoneage-lays-off-12-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"StoneAge lays off 12 employees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A global economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led StoneAge, Durango\u2019s maker of water-blasting cleaning tools, to lay off 12 employees, 10 of whom are located in Durango.<\/span>Durant Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

StoneAge, the maker of water-blasting cleaning tools and one of Durango\u2019s few industrial firms, has laid off 12 employees amid a global economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

StoneAge<\/a> CEO Kerry Siggins said the company expects to see sales decline 30% in 2020 compared with 2019, the first time the company\u2019s sales have not risen since it was founded in Durango in 1979 by John Wogamott and Jerry Zink.<\/p>\n

Of the 12 employees who were laid off June 17, 10 were located in Durango, Siggins said. StoneAge has 138 employees globally and 105 are located in the Durango headquarters.<\/p>\n

\"Siggins\"
Siggins<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely COVID-related. As economies shut down and people weren\u2019t working, it definitely had a decrease in demand for our products,\u201d Siggins said.<\/p>\n

Key customers, especially in oil refining and chemical plants in Texas, Louisiana and California, have been slowed by the novel coronavirus, and the trickle-down effects have lowered sales of StoneAge\u2019s water-blasting cleaning tools.<\/p>\n

Refineries and chemical plants in Europe and China are also experiencing slowdowns, Siggins said, and that\u2019s contributing to weaker demand for water-cleaning tools used principally in industrial applications to minimize or eliminate the use of solvents or chemicals that harm the environment.<\/p>\n

Food-processing plants, another big market, are also seeing slowdowns related to the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Siggins said StoneAge expects a slow recovery for companies using their water-blasting cleaning tools. She expects maintenance and capital investments will be delayed until the economy shows signs of strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not expecting to see a turnaround for our industry until 2021 and maybe even into 2022. It just depends on what happens with COVID,\u201d Siggins said. \u201cAnd, you know, the greater the impacts from COVID the greater the longer-term impacts on the economy. Right now, we\u2019re seeing cases increasing, in some states skyrocketing.\u201d<\/p>\n

StoneAge will survive the current slowdown, but, she said, not without taking painful measures like the layoffs required to ensure long-term viability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be fine, but 2020 is going to be the most difficult year this company has seen. So we want to make sure that we are taking the right actions to ensure that the company can weather this storm and then come into 2021 stronger,\u201d she said. \u201cBut a 30% decrease in sales when you\u2019ve increased year-over-year is not insignificant.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWith COVID, there\u2019s just so much uncertainty. We\u2019re not expecting any kind of recovery until 2021, but not a full recovery till 2022. That\u2019s what I\u2019m planning on right now. But, you know, there\u2019s lots of things that could change that on the upside or the downside. Right now, my crystal ball is filled with COVID. I don\u2019t think anyone can really tell you with any certainty how this will all play out.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COVID-19 slowdown hits Durango\u2019s maker of water-blasting cleaning tools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52986"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88188,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52986\/revisions\/88188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52986"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}