With a history going back to 1881, the Michigan Maple Block Co. has long been a reliable fixture in the small northern town of Petoskey. On its website, the family-owned company boasts of having invented the laminated butcher block and that its products grace the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. And yet by early July it will be shutting its Petoskey factory and cutting loose all 56 workers at one of the few year-round businesses in the Lake Michigan tourist town.
The economic carnage caused by the coronavirus outbreak has torn through Michigan Maple’s already slim profit margins and made it impossible to continue as a viable business, company President Ann Dau Conway said in a letter to staff. “My family has operated Michigan Maple Block through many advverse economic time periods including two world wars, the Great Depression, and multiple recessions. I am saddened that the mounting challenges the business faces today have compelled us to close the Company,” she wrote.
In an American economy negotiating a downturn that is already being likened to the 1930s Great Depression, with data on May 8 expected to show more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs in April, the story of Michigan Maple and its 56 workers is easy to ignore. It should, though, be a warning for those trying to figure if and when the U.S. economy can stage a full recovery from an induced coma.
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Originally Posted by helenpaul
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