About 20 Janesville Workers Face Layoffs | Business

About 20 employees from the Janesville Grainger facility were notified on Tuesday that they are going to be laid off due to the pending consolidation of one of its specialty brands distributed by the company.

The employees have been offered a severance package, the opportunity to re-apply for positions within the company or the chance to apply for the new company pending the final sale. Some of the jobs could be in Janesville, said spokeswoman Kelly France. She said the jobs impacted were connected with the specialty brand, Lab Safety Supply, and that they were positions that overlapped with the Grainger employees currently in Janesville.

Grainger announced last year that it would integrate Lab Safety Supply, a company Grainger bought in the 1990s, into Grainger, and divest several of its specialty brands. The specialty brands include Gemplers, which serves people and businesses who work outdoors; Ben Meadows, which serves forestry professionals; McFeely's, which serves woodworking and carpentry professionals; Rand, which serves warehouse professionals and Professional Equipment/Construction Book Express, which sells books and training materials to inspection, electrical, HVAC, engineering and building professionals.

More than 800 employees work at the Grainger facility in Janesville.

France said that Grainger currently operates a facility in Madison that employs about 70 people. That facility currently works on specialty brands within the company. Pending the sale of the brands, employees at the Madison facility will likely be offered employment from whoever purchases the brand from Grainger, France said.