Prepac to Close NC Plant, Cut 200 Jobs

Whitsett, N.C. – Prepac Manufacturing, a Canadian-owned maker of ready-to-assemble furniture,
is shutting down its Guilford County plant and laying off approximately 200 workers, the company announced. The
layoffs take effect May 2, 2026.

The closure comes roughly a year after Prepac relocated production from Canada to its Whitsett facility, a move that
drew praise from Republican leaders who credited it to the Trump administration’s tariff policies. The plant, a
260,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2021, was held up as a domestic manufacturing success story as recently
as last year.

In its Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filing with the North Carolina Department of Commerce on
March 3, the company cited “continued influx of low-cost Chinese imports” as a driving factor in the
decision.

Rep. Richard Hudson and other officials had publicly credited the Whitsett expansion to trade policy designed to
protect American manufacturers from foreign competition. The closure now puts those claims in a difficult light, as
the company says overseas competition proved too steep to sustain domestic operations.

The Whitsett plant serves Guilford County, part of the greater Greensboro metro area. No information on severance or
transition assistance for affected workers has been publicly released.