Furniture manufacturing: a step-by-step profile

Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 25 -- furniture and fixtures manufacturing -- covers a variety of furniture products. These include household furniture, office furniture, and institutional furniture as well as partitions and fixtures. Statistically, household furniture accounts for two-thirds of the establishments, sales, and employment in this SIC category and will be emphasized in this presentation. A profile of the household furniture industry (Table 1) indicates that it is very appropriate to discuss this industry in the context of small plants. With 320,000 employees in 5400 plants, the average plant has less than 60 employees. The largest companies in this industry have fever than 7500 employees and account for less than three percent of the total sales each. Except where furniture manufacturing is a subsidiary or division of a larger company, full-time industrial physicians and hygienists are not employed in this industry. A few of the larger companies have full-time safety managers, and nurses are found in some of the larger plants.