Not a good Christmas present.
After much ballyhoo nearly 18 years ago over the opening of a Quad/Graphics plant in Oklahoma City, the Wisconsin-based company announced it is closing the plant in a move that will affect an estimated 400 workers.
Ground was broken 18 years ago on the 1 million-square-foot printing facility and 10 years later, then-Gov Mary Fallin pressed a button to bring the facility’s newest printing press on line creating 120 more jobs.
That was then. Before COVID-19 struck the globe causing a downturn in demand for magazines, catalogs and other materials.
The company says decreased demand was due to “an already challenging retail environment” only worsened by the pandemic.
Earlier in the year, the company closed four of its plants in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon and California and put 1,100 employees out of work.
In recent days, the company added three more plants including the one in Oklahoma City to the list of those that will be idled permanently. Others are in Nashville, Tennessee and Fernley, Nevada.
Oklahoma City’s is the largest. The company has 17,000 workers across the world.