Pharma packaging plant closing in Mecklenburg

Nipro PharmaPackaging, a division of Nipro Corp. Japan, plans to shutter its location in Mecklenburg County, just outside the town limits of Chase City, by October, according to a town official.

About 30 employees will lose their jobs, Town Manager C.F. “Dusty” Forbes said.

Forbes learned of the plant’s closure in early September, a few days after he was told Butler Human Services Furniture planned to shut down its Chase City operations, leaving 51 employees out of work.

“We’re looking at around 80-plus jobs that are going to disappear in our community of about 2,100 people,” Forbes said. “So, that’s a big hit for us.”

A spokesperson for Nipro PharmaPackaging did not respond to a request for comment.

Before the July Fourth holiday, according to Forbes, Nipro PharmaPackaging took an extended maintenance break due to lack of business. He estimated the company had about 50 employees working at the Virginia facility at that time.

Workers at the plant make vials for medicinal products, according to the Nipro PharmaPackaging website.

“[Companies] had stockpiled so many vials … and [Nipro] just didn’t have the orders,” Forbes said. “They said [they were] going to take an extended maintenance hoping that the orders would return, and [they would] be able to continue with work and production.”

Around the beginning of August, Nipro PharmaPackaging called about 30 employees back to work, according to Forbes. Now, he expects those workers will soon be job hunting.

“They won’t have anywhere else to go because there’s no other plant nearby,” Forbes said.

Forbes isn’t optimistic about the chances of another large manufacturer moving into Chase City.

“That’s just not the nature of things these days,” Forbes said. “But if we could get a couple smaller companies to come in, maybe that employed 20 to 25, that would be something that we would really like to shoot for.”

On Thursday, the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement, also known as Virginia Works, reported that 3,509 initial unemployment insurance weekly claims were filed
during the week ending Sept. 13. That was a 35.5% increase over the previous week and a 62% increase over a comparable week last year. There were 19,390 continued claims during the week ending Sept. 13. That was a 0.4% decrease from the previous week and a 31% increase over a comparable week last year.