Coleco Lays Off 100 Workers in Connecticut
Coleco Industries is laying off 100 employees, or 14% of its Hartford-area work force, a company spokeswoman said.
Analysts say the cutbacks are the result of reduced sales of Cabbage Patch Kid dolls and a lukewarm reception to the company’s Rambo toy.
The layoffs affect workers at the company’s corporate headquarters in West Hartford and two satellite offices in Hartford.
The move follows the layoffs of some 200 workers at Coleco’s manufacturing planing in Amsterdam, N.Y., last month and 50 other workers in the Hartford area in the spring.
Drop in Cabbage Patch Sales
“We anticipate no further work force reduction,” Barbara C. Wruck, vice president for corporate communications, said Wednesday.
“Coleco has been hard hit by a very sharp drop in Cabbage Patch sales,” said Paul Valentine, a securities analyst with Standard & Poor’s Corp. in New York.
“The Cabbage Patch Kids carried enormous profit margins, but now their sales are slowing down. And I don’t think Rambo or some of those other new product are doing well enough to pick up the slack,” said Paul Rothman, analyst for Advest Group in Hartford.
The new layoffs, affecting salaried and hourly employees, leave Coleco with just over 600 employees in the Hartford area and about 2,500 at its Upstate New York plant, which is the company’s main U.S. production site. Coleco has a total of 3,500 employees worldwide.
