EMPORIA, Va. — Hundreds of employees at the Georgia-Pacific plywood plant in Emporia, Virginia, are losing their jobs after the facility ceased operations immediately on Friday.
The company delivered the news to the plant's just over 550 employees during a series of meetings Friday morning and through a letter distributed to workers, according to Rick Kimble, Georgia-Pacific's director of public affairs.
"Today we let the employees know at our Emopria, Virginia, plywood mill that we are ceasing operations as of today," Kimble said. "The employees will continue to get paid and benefits for 60 days after today. But for all intents and purposes, the operations have been shut down today."
FULL INTERVIEW: Georgia-Pacific official on Emporia plant closure
Officials blamed a combination of factors, including high home prices and a 30-year low in existing home sales, for the closure.
"It's really a combination of several things, mostly surrounding how plywood is used in the market. Plywood is heavily used, as you probably know, in the house construction and remodeling business," Kimble explained. "So plywood right now is unfortunately just at a very low point in the market."
Kimble acknowledged that Friday was a "very sad day" for workers and the company.
"There's a lot of very tenured employees out here that have been in this business," Kimble said. "We've been in business and employing here since the late '60s, so some of those employees have been here for a long time."
WATCH: Workers react to Georgia-Pacific plywood plant closure in Emporia
Some employees may remain on past July 1 to help with the facility shutdown, Kimble said.
"There'll be a little bit of shipping going on in the next couple of weeks just to get inventory out of the warehouse," Kimble said.
Jason Pollick, a millwright at the plant, said some employees realized Thursday that the plant was being shuttered.
"They found out yesterday, told everybody, shut the boiler down then," Pollick said. "We knew it right then yesterday."
Brandon Brown said he had worked at the plant for over three years and loved his job as a millwright.
"It's very unsettling because I have 5 young kids at home," Brown said. "You know this was kind of a spur-of-the-moment type thing..."
Lashonda Hinton, who had only worked at the plant for eight months, was thrilled when she was offered a position.
"I applied for them a couple times, finally got me a call," she recalled. "I was driving back and forth from Richmond and I moved back down here from Alexandria."
When Hinton first started, she said she "trained on everything," but then landed on Glue Line One and after 2-3 months was trained on the accumulator.
"A lot of people can't operate it," she said. "It's like 3 of us that can operate it. It's easy, but it's a lot of work. And that's where all the money at because we've got to make sure all the panels are good, the glue not leaking."
Hinton said her coworkers were "lovely" and likened the scene outside the plant on Friday to a family reunion.
"Everybody worked together because we was making too much money in a small town for us to affect that," she said. "So you see everybody still in the parking lot talking now. This is how it was inside a GP. We was the same way as a family and even the managers."
Hinton said there were tears on Friday and that she hugged her manager — the man who hired her.
"They told us to wait for right now, so I'm gonna sit back and wait," Hinton said. "Hopefully, they plan something to open up because this is a big mill and they got plenty of money, so it was no way — Boar's Head was like that too, and we thought they would never shut down. So I'm gonna sit back and we see the after effect and see what goes on from there."
The plant's closure is the second large employer in the area to shutter. The troubled Boar’s Head deli meat plant in nearby Jarratt closed in September 2024. The facility stopped production in July after a deadly food poisoning outbreak was linked to meat from the plant.
Pollick predicted the latest blow would "cripple" Emporia.
"You just lost Boar's Head and lost GP," Pollick said. "Ain't gonna be nothing left here."
Kimble said the company had been in contact with state and local leaders.
"[City] administration officials have offered their 100% support," Kimble said. "The state has also reached out to help. So we'll do everything we can for the employees to make it as seamless as possible."
FULL INTERVIEW: Virginia Secretary of Labor on Georgia-Pacific plant closure
Bryan Slater, Virginia's Secretary of Labor, said he had talked to Georgia-Pacific officials Friday morning.
"Our Rapid Response team has already been in touch with the City of Emporia and Greensville County," Slater said. "We're talking to Southside Virginia Community College, Georgia-Pacific and our Rapid Response team at Virginia Works are connecting."
Slater said Georgia-Pacific is going to work closely with the agency to ensure "we can get people job training opportunities, job placement opportunities."
WATCH: Boar’s Head closes Jarratt, Virginia, plant after deadly listeria outbreak
While the primary goal is to find new jobs for the workers "as soon as possible," Slater said that the local unemployment office would help people sign up for unemployment and "get them processed very quickly."
Slater said the Commonwealth is "committed to trying to find those people jobs in and around that area and work to bring companies into that area to pick up some of that job loss."
Georgia-Pacific officials said they would determine the future of the facility and property at a later date.
"The Virginia Economic Development Partnership is already having conversations to see who could be interested in that facility," Slater said. "I think there's some other explorations going on down there about other types of employment coming into that area."
Georgia-Pacific is one of the world's largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, toilet and paper towel dispensers, packaging and building products, according to its website.
The company has three other plants in Virginia, according to its website. Before shuttering its Emporia plant, the company said it directly employed 1,150 workers in the Commonwealth.
Emporia, which had a population of roughly 5,700 as of the 2020 census and is the county seat of Greensville County, is roughly 66 miles and a 1 hour 10-minute drive from Richmond along Interstate 95.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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