“It sucks…no other way to describe it,” said Mark Martin, president of Jarden Technical Apparel, when contacted by SNEWS® regarding reported layoffs at both Marmot and ExOfficio.

Martin told us that like most companies, it had already done all the easy things to trim expenses, including a hiring freeze, executive pay cuts, etc. On Feb. 27, ExOfficio notified four employees -- a retail director, design director, a marketing coordinator and a person in receiving -- that their positions were being eliminated. On March 2, Marmot followed suit with four layoffs of its own, including notifying John Cooley that his 20-year tenure at the company had come to an end. In addition to Cooley, three others received layoff notifications across three departments, finance, marketing and product development.

--Michael Hodgson