MANUFACTURING
S&S Activewear Shutters California Warehouse, Opens New Facility in Nevada
S&S Activewear, the 31-year-old distributor of wholesale apparel, is laying off 136 employees as it prepares to close down its large warehouse in Santa Fe Springs, Calif.
On March 5, the Illinois-based company filed papers with the state Employment Development Department advising that its layoffs of 136 workers would be effective May 31.
The employees work in a warehouse that encompasses 240,000 square feet and has been a main distribution center for the apparel concern for many years.
But in February the wholesale uniform and promotional-apparel distributor opened a gargantuan 800,000-square-foot warehouse in Reno, Nev., where the company said it planned to employ 350 workers and consolidate its California operations into its new warehouse.
With a larger facility, the company said it is able to carry 30 percent more SKUs and three times more inventory than it previously was able to offer from its California location.
“Perhaps most significantly, though, our quest to bring one-day shipping across the country is now a reality,” said Frank Myers, the company’s chief operating officer, in a statement. “We’ve been growing since 1989, with expansion to California, New Jersey, Kansas, Texas and Georgia. Our Reno location is by far our biggest yet.”
Moving to Reno helps the company’s bottom line, with rents, electricity, transportation and labor costs being much lower in Nevada than they are in Los Angeles County, where the minimum wage for a larger company is $13.25 an hour. In Reno, the minimum wage is $8.25 an hour. The new facility also has a solar-powered generation system to save on electricity costs.
Myers said the new location provides employees with more favorable costs of living plus access to desirable public schools and national parks, including the Tahoe National Forest.
With the decision to move to Reno, Myers said the company also decided to relocate its California call-center operations to Tempe, Ariz.
Some of the brands that S&S Activewear distributes include Alstyle, American Apparel, Bella + Canvas, Next Level, Columbia Sportswear, Bayside, Hanes, Sierra Pacific and Calvin Klein.
