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Thomasville Furniture Adding 100 Workers

Company says it will add more than 100 workers to its plant in Lenoir, N.C., because of increased costs of doing business overseas.

LENIOR, N.C. (AP) -- Thomasville Furniture says it will add more than 100 workers to its plant in Lenoir because of increased costs of doing business overseas.

The Hickory Daily Record reported Wednesday that company officials said employment will increase to more than 800 workers in the next few months. The Lenoir plant is Thomasville's last U.S. case goods operation.

Thomasville officials say rising labor costs, shipping costs and soaring fuel prices in Asia prompted the decision to add jobs in Lenoir.

It's a reversal of the recent trend, where thousands of furniture manufacturing jobs have been moved overseas.

The newspaper reported Thomasville has cut its domestic work force from about 8,000 in the late 1990s to 2,300 today.

Thomasville employs about 400 people at two upholstered furniture plants in Hickory.

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