Bargain Day in Appliances

For consumers in the market for "white goods" (refrigerators, washing machines, etc.), the bargains last week were the best in many a moon. Hotpoint was so eager to unload that it had set up carnival-like displays around the nation, was giving away cokes, ice cream and balloons to kids who brought their mothers to the fair (next week, the kids can trade their mothers for space helmets). Whirlpool has cut distributor prices 6% on some refrigerator models. General Electric has stripped trim off other models to sell them as cheaper "economy specials." The industry was hustling as quickly as it could to move its oversupply of goods.

The appliance industry's problem is not so much a slump as a boom that failed to get off. As one G.E. applianceman explained: "Everybody was elated about the sensational golden '60s that were going to bust wide-open. We got a little over-optimistic." Production cutbacks are the or der of the day. Frigidaire last week laid off 1,150 Dayton-plant employees indefinitely. This week G.E.'s vast $300 million Appliance Park plant in Louisville shut down its refrigerator division for a week, laid off 4,500 workers. This month it will close its large home-laundry division for a week, idling another 1,500. But William P. Von Behren, G.E.'s general manager of Appliance Park, says that even with present layoffs the total work force is still 11,200--well above the 10,000 jobs that "we consider our base employment at Appliance Park, the jobs that are essentially unaffected by seasonal ups and downs or rapid changes in consumer buying habits."

Actual industry sales of major appliances are running 4.2% behind those last year, estimates Hotpoint, and that was the second-best year in the industry's history. Main reason for the cutbacks now is excessive dealer inventories. The manufacturers overproduced and the dealers overstocked last fall in anticipation of the steel strike. Now dealers want to reduce their inventories before reordering. Since retail buying is holding up fairly well, most appliance makers expect a pickup in orders the last half of the year as dealer inventories drop.

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