Dump truck plant closes

A plant in Marlboro County has closed its doors for good, effective immediately, increasing the county’s already high unemployment rate.

Ox Bodies, a dump truck manufacturer in Bennettsville, came to South Carolina about five years ago and employed 30 people in the county.

Dale Pilger, president of Ox Bodies, said the closure is part of the company’s con-solidation process.

“We had discontinued manufacturing at that plant some time ago and had been doing only installations for customers in that geographic location,” he said. “With (the close of the plant) we are consolidating that service at (the Fayette, Ala., headquarters) but will be using the (Bennettsville) site for logistics. We’ll manage chassis and finished trucks for our customer at the location so they won’t be affected by the actual plant closure.”

The company is a designer, manufacturer and installer of medium and heavy duty Class 6- 8 dump bodies, platforms, pup trailer bodies, trash bodies and related dump truck body accessories.

Pilger said the trucking industry has been a challenge lately and it was important for the company to be cost and production effective.

Marlboro County Administrator Cecil Kimrey said it’s tough when something closes and the county will have to roll with the punches.

“We hate to lose any employment with our unemployment rate as it is right now,” he said. “We’ll just have to work harder to find more companies for the area.

“I was aware that (Ox Bodies) wasn’t doing well here and knew there was a possibil-ity that it could close but you really hate to see them go.”

According to the latest unemployment figures for June, Marlboro County was the only county out of seven counties in the Pee Dee to show no change in unemployment rates.

All other counties showed slight increases for June, according to the S.C. Employ-ment Security Commission’s monthly report released July 18.

Marlboro County was ranked third in the state for unemployment in May, but now ties Chester County for fifth in the state with a 10.8 percent unemployment rate for June.

Doris Ann Breeden, executive director of Marlboro County’s One Stop Workforce Center, said the effect of the layoff already has been seen in the unemployment office.

“The laid off employees have already come in and filed their claims,” she said. “It’s been about two weeks since they came in and, of course, we encourage them to register for work that’s available to them that they are qualified for.”

Breeden said the employees were furloughed June 30.

“This just adds to the (unemployment) numbers we have,” she said. “It’s going to be tough because a lot of those people that were laid off from Ox Bodies were local people that aren’t used to commuting far to work.

“The possibility of commuting to Florence or Myrtle Beach will be an adjustment for them.”

Pilger said there would be one employee stationed at the Bennettsville location to handle logistics.