Resolute Forest Products Inc. announced Thursday it will idle pulp and paper operations at its Calhoun, Tennessee, mill and lay off 350 workers.
The Canada-based company said the move is designed to cut ongoing losses at the Calhoun mill, which despite the strong market for its products still lost $62 million over the past year.
Resolute gave workers the required 60-day notice on Thursday under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988, and the company said it will phase out production of its pulp products and unfinished freesheet paper over the next couple of months. Resolute will keep its tissue production in Calhoun and retain about 195 employees while it suspends the pulp and paper manufacturing process.
“We have taken the very difficult decision to indefinitely idle pulp and paper operations at Calhoun knowing how hard this is for the affected employees and their families,” Remi G. Lalonde, Resolute’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement Thursday. “Success has proved elusive at Calhoun’s pulp and paper operations, despite the best efforts of our dedicated employees and significant investments of time, energy and resources over the last few years.”
The Calhoun site is the latest paper mill in the U.S. to cut production this year. Bloomberg News said North American mills have already cut more than 2.5 million metric tons of North American printing and writing paper capacity this year, or nearly one-fifth of 2019 levels. Resolute, which phased out its newsprint operations in Calhoun nearly a decade ago, has also cut back production of newsprint at other company facilities in Canada.