Kraftmaid to lay off 145 workers

Kraftmaid to lay off 145 workers

MIDDLEFIELD

Cabinet maker Kraftmaid will lay off 145 employees at facilities in Middlefield and Orwell effective next Monday, the company said Wednesday.

Hourly and salaried workers are included in the layoffs at two factories in Middlefield and one in Orwell, said Susan Cross, spokeswoman for Masco Cabinetry, manufacturer of the Kraftmaid brand.

She said the layoffs were caused by fewer orders. Cross declined to say how much orders were down.

“We manufacture cabinetry that is very closely tied with the housing market — new construction as well as remodeling existing housing — which have all been impacted by the current economic climate,” Cross said

About 2,000 people work at the three affected plants.

New-home sales rise 6.6 percent

WASHINGTON

Sales of new homes improved last month after the worst summer in nearly five decades but not enough to lift the struggling economy.

The Commerce Department says new-home sales in September grew 6.6 percent from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 307,000. Even with the increase, the past five months have been the worst for new-home sales on records dating back to 1963.

Wells Fargo’s flawed foreclosures

WASHINGTON

Wells Fargo admitted Wednesday it made mistakes in the paperwork for thousands of foreclosure cases and promised to fix them.

The San Francisco-based bank said it plans to refile documents in 55,000 of the cases by mid-November. The company said not all those cases included errors but didn’t say how many thousands did.

Wells Fargo described the mistakes as technical and said it has no plans to halt the foreclosure process.

Wells Fargo & Co.’s CEO, John Stumpf, has declined to join Bank of America Corp., Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage and other banks in suspending foreclosures because of flawed paperwork that surfaced at several large banks.

Verizon begins selling Apple iPads

BASKING RIDGE, N.J.,

Verizon Wireless begins selling the Apple iPadT today at its stores nationwide.

Verizon will offer three bundles, all featuring an iPad Wi-Fi model and a Verizon MiFiT 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot. Verizon is offering a monthly access plan to customers who purchase an iPad with a MiFi beginning at 1 GB of data. All three iPad Wi-Fi models also will be offered on a stand-alone basis.

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