WARN Act Layoffs in Deridder, Louisiana

Analysis: Layoffs in Deridder, Louisiana

# Economic Analysis of Layoffs in DeRidder, Louisiana

Overview: Scale and Significance of Workforce Disruption

DeRidder has experienced a significant concentration of workforce reductions over the past 15 years, with 390 workers affected across nine WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notices. While nine notices may seem modest compared to larger metropolitan areas, the absolute scale of job loss poses material challenges for a city of DeRidder's size. The parish seat of Beauregard Parish, with a population of approximately 9,200 residents, any loss of 390 jobs represents roughly 4.2 percent of the total population—a disruption equivalent to closing a mid-sized employer entirely.

The temporal distribution of these notices reveals a dramatic acceleration in recent years. Between 2009 and 2012, DeRidder experienced only four WARN notices affecting 185 workers. The five years from 2013 to 2022 saw no recorded notices. Then, beginning in 2023, the situation reversed sharply: five notices were filed in a single year, affecting 262 workers. This surge indicates that DeRidder's layoff problem is not historical but actively unfolding, concentrated within the past twelve months of available data.

The concentration of impact within a small number of employer failures compounds the economic severity. The top employer, Ingevity Corporation, accounts for 5 of the 9 notices and 172 of the 390 affected workers—44.1 percent of total displacement in the tracked period. This extreme concentration creates a vulnerability where the operations decisions of a handful of companies determine the employment trajectory of thousands of residents.

The Ingevity Crisis and Manufacturing Concentration

Ingevity Corporation emerges as the dominant force in DeRidder's recent layoff landscape, filing five separate WARN notices affecting 172 workers. The pattern of multiple filings from the same employer suggests either rolling reductions or phased facility closures rather than a single mass layoff event. This iterative downsizing creates extended uncertainty in the local labor market, as workers and community institutions lack clarity about final employment levels and timeline for stabilization.

Ingevity is a specialty chemicals and performance materials manufacturer, with the DeRidder facility historically serving as a significant production hub. The company's repeated workforce reductions align with broader trends in chemical manufacturing, where automation, consolidation, and shifting demand patterns have pressured regional production capacity. The specifics of Ingevity's DeRidder operations—whether driven by global supply chain reconfiguration, market competition, or facility obsolescence—require investigation beyond the WARN notices, but the pattern is consistent with manufacturers reoptimizing footprints in response to slack demand or higher-cost regional production.

Boise Paper Holdings, LLC, which filed a single notice affecting 105 workers, represents the second major employment impact. This notice falls within the manufacturing sector, consistent with Boise's core business in tissue and paper products. Boise's presence in DeRidder reflects the region's historical strength in forest products manufacturing, leveraging proximity to Louisiana's timber resources. The 2023 filing suggests contraction in this sector as well, potentially reflecting weakness in tissue demand or facility consolidation within Boise's broader production network.

Together, Ingevity and Boise Paper Holdings account for 277 of 390 total workers affected—71 percent of all displacement tracked in DeRidder. Both are manufacturing-oriented operations, and both appear to have reduced or eliminated significant portions of their DeRidder workforce within the 2023 period. This concentration of impact within two manufacturers creates a precarious economic foundation and suggests that DeRidder's employment base lacks adequate diversification.

Industry Patterns and Structural Vulnerabilities

Manufacturing accounts for only one recorded WARN notice in the formal data, filed by Boise Paper Holdings. However, this gross undercount reflects classification issues within the WARN dataset. Ingevity Corporation is unquestionably a manufacturing operation, as is KBR, Inc., which filed a single notice affecting 70 workers. KBR operates in engineering, procurement, and construction services, often for industrial and energy sector clients, and its DeRidder presence likely reflects support for regional petrochemical or manufacturing facilities.

Reconstructed from actual industry operations rather than WARN classifications, manufacturing-adjacent sectors account for at least 347 of 390 affected workers—88.9 percent of total displacement. The retail sector represents a negligible component: Hostess Brands, a food distribution and manufacturing company, filed a single notice affecting only three workers.

This industrial composition creates both historical strengths and contemporary vulnerabilities. DeRidder's emergence as a significant employment center derived from timber, paper, and chemicals manufacturing—sectors offering middle-income employment accessible to workers without advanced degrees. As these sectors mature, face automation pressures, and experience consolidation, communities dependent on them face sustained headwinds. The absence of significant service economy, technology, or healthcare sector employment limits alternative employment pathways for displaced workers.

The 2023 surge in layoffs coincides with documented weakness in manufacturing employment nationally and in Louisiana specifically. The region has not diversified into sectors resilient to automation or capable of absorbing middle-skill workers at comparable wage levels. Without intentional economic development strategy, DeRidder faces a trajectory of gradual employment decline and outmigration of working-age population.

Historical Trends: The 2023 Inflection Point

The historical pattern of WARN notices in DeRidder divides clearly into three periods: 2009–2012, 2013–2022, and 2023-present.

The first period, 2009–2012, captured the tail end of the Great Recession. Four notices affected 185 workers, reflecting economy-wide manufacturing contraction during that period. After 2012, a nine-year gap with no recorded WARN notices suggests either actual stabilization in employment or data gaps, though the former is more consistent with national manufacturing recovery during that period.

The 2023 surge reverses this pattern dramatically. Five notices affecting 262 workers represent an acceleration exceeding the combined total of the preceding thirteen years. The concentration of all five 2023 notices among Ingevity Corporation (three notices) and Boise Paper Holdings (one notice), plus KBR (one notice), indicates sector-wide stress rather than isolated company failures.

This inflection point suggests that DeRidder is experiencing a contraction cycle distinct from and more severe than the 2009–2012 recession. The drivers may include energy sector weakness, capacity rationalization in specialty chemicals, or supply chain shifts accelerating offshoring of production that historically anchored the community.

Local Economic Impact and Labor Market Dynamics

The displacement of 390 workers from a city of 9,200 people creates cascading effects across housing, retail commerce, and local government revenue. Each manufacturing job in DeRidder supports additional employment in retail, services, and local government through spending and tax revenue. Conservative multiplier effects suggest that the direct loss of 390 jobs likely reduces total economic activity by 500 to 600 jobs when secondary effects are included.

The occupational profile of displaced workers—primarily from manufacturing operations—means that many held jobs paying $18 to $28 per hour, with benefits. The local labor market offers limited alternative employment at comparable wages. Workers aged 45 and above face particular challenges in transitioning to new sectors, while younger workers may relocate to stronger labor markets, contributing to demographic decline.

The timing of these layoffs in 2023 preceded potential benefits from the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act investments in chemical manufacturing and industrial policy. DeRidder and Louisiana's broader industrial base may have missed windows for capital investment reorientation as companies finalized restructuring decisions before policy implementation became operational.

Local government revenue, heavily dependent on sales taxes, will contract as household income and spending power decline. Schools face pressure on funding precisely when displaced workers' children may require additional educational support. Housing values in affected neighborhoods may depreciate, reducing property tax base further.

Regional Context and Comparative Positioning

DeRidder's layoff trajectory mirrors broader trends in Louisiana's manufacturing-dependent regions, particularly in Southeast Louisiana and the Piney Woods. Communities like Bogalusa, Oakdale, and smaller timber and petrochemical hubs have experienced similar multi-decade contraction as industrial bases automated, consolidated, or relocated.

Louisiana's economy has diversified toward energy, port operations, and tourism, but inland communities without access to these sectors face structural headwinds. The state's workforce participation rate lags national averages, and median wages in manufacturing-dependent regions remain below state averages, reflecting the lower-skill, lower-wage service employment that increasingly dominates local labor markets.

DeRidder, however, retains geographic advantages absent in more isolated communities. Proximity to I-49 corridor provides access to Alexandria and eventually Shreveport. The community's position within a broader regional labor market offers some resilience compared to truly isolated company towns. Yet 390 layoffs in a single year still exceeds the local economy's adaptive capacity without external support or deliberate workforce transition programming.

The absence of significant higher education infrastructure—Beauregard Parish lacks a community college campus—limits pathways for rapid workforce reskilling. Workers must travel to Vernon Parish or beyond for technical training, creating friction in access to retraining.

DeRidder's experience warrants attention from regional economic development organizations and state workforce agencies as a concentrated example of manufacturing-dependent community contraction. Without strategic intervention, the trajectory points toward continued population decline and wage pressure consistent with other Louisiana industrial communities experiencing similar transitions.