The Canadian yarn company Spinrite announced Tuesday that it will be ceasing packaging operations at its Washington location beginning in December.

“We made the extremely difficult decision to discontinue our manufacturing operations in our Washington location effective December 3, 2019,” Spinrite Human Resources Director Lindsay Beharry wrote in an email Wednesday. “With the recent acquisition of the Coats & Clark business in February of this year, we have determined there is additional capacity at our Albany and Douglas, Georgia facilities. To make the best use of our expanded capacity it made sense to move the packaging operations to Georgia as we are unable to spin yarn here in Washington.”

Spinrite employs approximately 70 employees in Washington, through not all of them were impacted by the decision. While Spinrite will be moving its packaging operations to Georgia, it will still operate a distribution center in Washington.

Although Spinrite leases space from National Spinning, the two are separate businesses. Spinrite acquired the Caron brand from National Spinning in 2011, and continued to employ many of the National Spinning employees in that division. Some of those employees will be impacted by the move.

As to the future of the employees impacted by the move, Beharry says the company is taking steps to help ease the transition. For any employee interested in moving to Albany or Georgia, the company has jobs available. For those who choose to stay in Washington, Spinrite hopes to help connect them with other local employers.

“We plan to host a job fair at the facility in October,” Beharry wrote. “We will also be offering separation packages to all employees impacted.”