When it comes to business these days it seems like there is no telling who is going to be giving the ax and when. While some industries were sure to feel the pinch as people had less in the way of disposable income to spend, such as high-end retail shops and airlines, others have been a bit of a surprise. Just ask the majority of laid off civil servants, most of them would tell you that they thought that their jobs would be secure for life.

In today’s case the company is a bit of a middle ground. So, the workers may have been expecting to get laid off, but they may not have. The company is question is WS Packaging Inc. and they are getting ready to get rid of 53 workers from their staff.

While that may not feel bad it is two different things. Firstly, since the company has only 125 workers, the loss of 53 workers is not quite half of the staff being cut, but it is pretty close. Secondly the cuts will be enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

On the bright side the cuts are not because of a complete loss of jobs to the company. The company is moving some of the work to other states, so what the state of Pennsylvania is losing the states of Ohio and Wisconsin will be gaining, in workflow at least, if not in jobs. For the time being it will only be a matter of time to see if the company does any pickup hiring in order to help the new facilities with the enhanced workload or not.

Interestingly enough the latest news release from the company was talking about acquisitions, not layoffs, which may explain why the company is moving around resources. The acquisition is better explained in the words of the release, “WS Packaging Group, Inc. has acquired Consolidated Products Inc., a label converting company located in Knoxville, Tennessee. Consolidated Products produces compliance labels for industrial products; manufactures flexo, digital and domed labels; markets thermal transfer printers and ribbons, as well as automation equipment; specializes in providing turnkey RFID and warehouse management solutions; and provides both offset and digitally produced “Directions For Use” manuals and instruction sheets. The company is an ISO 9001:2008 certified manufacturer of pressure-sensitive labels and tags.”

For the time being the company is trying to do right by the workers. They are being given a severance benefit and the company is going to help them to find new jobs.