This quarter will be hit severely, as the past few months of 2008 saw office furniture orders and shipments plunge drastically along with rising office vacancies and aggressive corporate downsizing.
According to the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association, orders in November 2008 dropped by 21% and shipments fell by 9%, while orders fell by 6% in October and 2% in September. A 1% rise in orders and shipments was seen in August.
Manufacturers expect 2009 orders and shipments to fall by 13.1% and 11.6%, respectively. Longbow Research analyst Mark Rupe said, There will be quarters in 2009 that will be worse than the fourth quarter [2008]”.
Leading office furniture manufactures such as HNI Corp, Knoll, Herman Miller and Steelcase are expecting to report poor results this year. All these companies have already been forced to take a number of cost reduction measures.
