CORTLAND, N.Y. – Eighty-nine employees at the Apex Tool Group facility in Cortland will lose their jobs sooner than expected.
The company says it will close its Cortland plant by the end of October, two months earlier than expected.
"We looked at our volume forecast for the rest of the year, and it is lower than original estimates," Kelly Blask, spokesperson for Apex Tools, said in a phone interview Thursday morning.
The manufacturer of hand and power tools first announced in May that it would be closing its Cortland plant on River Street by the end of December.
The company, which is headquartered in Maryland, has had operations at the Cortland facility since 1911. It has more than 25 plants in North and South America, Europe, Australia and Asia, according to its website.
Employees are being provided resources to help them transition into their next job, Blask said.
Those resources include employment workshops and meetings with benefits representatives, Blask said. Officials from the New York State Department of Labor have also been meeting with workers at the plant to discuss their options.
The company previously announced that the work being done at the Cortland plant will be shifted to newer facilities in Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
