Christian Book Distributors reduces its work force in face of buying cutbacks by book stores and diminishing profits. Like many book industry companies, they are doing what they must to weather the recession.
Christian Book Distributors (CBD), the largest religious catalog company in the world, laid off 37 employees at its Peabody, MA headquarters this week. The cuts amount to 7 percent of the company’s work force and reduces the number of employees to 528.
“Our executive team struggled with this decision, but in this environment we felt it was critical to put the company in the best position for the long term,” Ray Hendrickson, president of Christian Book Distributors, said in a prepared statement released yesterday.
CBD sends out more than 65 mailings of unique catalogs to millions of customers each year. The company offers a wide variety of Christian products, including more than 200,000 books, Bibles, CDs, DVDs, gifts, toys and games.
The layoffs mark the second time in the company’s 30-year history that it has been forced to shed jobs. About 60 workers were laid off in 2002.
“Although our business has fared better than most in our industry, it is important in this business environment to position the company to be as healthy as possible,” Hendrickson said in his statement. “Eliminating 7 percent of our current staff we feel will right-size our work force and position us properly in the current environment.”
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