N. CAROLINA’S FURNITURE HUB BOOMS
Orders for American-made products are strong, but supply chain snags hurt
HICKORY, N.C.
Six months into the coronavirus pandemic, as millions of workers lost their jobs and companies fretted about their economic future, something unexpected happened at Hancock & Moore, a purveyor of customupholstered leather couches and chairs in this small North Carolina town.
Orders began pouring in. Families stuck at home had decided to upgrade their sectionals. Singles tired of looking at their sad futons wanted new and nicer living room furniture. And they were willing to pay up — which turned out to be good, because the cost of every part of producing furniture, from fabric to wood to shipping, was beginning to swiftly increase.
More than a year later, the furniture companies that dot Hickory, N.C., in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, have been presented with an unforeseen opportunity: The pandemic and its ensuing supply chain disruptions have dealt a setback
to the factories in China and Southeast Asia that decimated U.S. manufacturing in the 1980s and 1990s with cheaper imports. At the same time, demand for furniture is very strong.
In theory, that means they have a shot at building back some of the business that they lost to globalization. Local furniture companies had shed jobs and reinvented themselves
in the wake of offshoring, shifting to custom upholstery and handcrafted wood furniture to survive. Now firms such as Hancock & Moore have a backlog of orders. The company is scrambling to hire workers.
“Not to sound trite, but it’s unprecedented,” said Amy Guyer, vice president for human resources and benefits for the parent company that