Another top Centre County employer announces layoffs related to COVID-19
One of Centre County’s largest employers permanently laid off about 50 employees earlier this month due in part to business shutdown orders issued to mitigate the potential spread of the coronavirus.
Glenn O. Hawbaker announced the job cuts Friday, citing cuts to state transportation budgets and the suspension of several private and commercial construction projects.
“We will continue to service our customers as we adapt to this new business climate and maintain a safe, professional, customer service driven organization,” the company wrote in a Facebook post.
The Patton Township-based construction company is not alone in cutting jobs.
Mount Nittany Health, another one of Centre County’s largest employers, recently announced it was cutting 250 jobs to address an expected $70 million revenue shortfall.
Gov. Tom Wolf’s decision in mid-March to “shut everybody down” led to vast unemployment claims, state Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, said Monday.
The senator preferred Wolf allow businesses to remain open and comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines instead of closing, he said.
“We’re trying to make sure that everyone has as much information as possible so they can open in a safe manner and allow the people of Pennsylvania to make decisions for themselves and their own safety. That’s what you do in a pandemic,” Corman said. “You don’t quarantine the healthy; you quarantine the sick or the exposed. This governor has quarantined the healthy, which has led to carnage all over the place.”
Wolf’s spokeswoman Lyndsay Kensinger strongly pushed back against Corman’s statements, saying he has spent the past four months telling his constituents and businesses to ignore public health guidance while trying to force reopenings.
“He led a vote against the governor’s disaster declaration that would not have open(ed) a single business, but instead it would have led to a wave of evictions and foreclosures while costing local governments millions of dollars in federal funds,” Kensinger wrote in an emailed statement. “At every single juncture, Sen. Corman has been unequivocally wrong and every decision he would have made would have led to more death and economic ruin.”