Last week I reported that more than 400 paint geeks had lost their jobs in layoffs at Pittsburgh, Rust-Oleum (owned by RPM), Ace Hardware and Chemours, the country’s leading TiO2 producer.  Those 400 are among an estimated 1,000 laid off in paint in the last three-quarters, though a detailed accounting might make that number closer to 1,200.   I further shared my belief that more layoffs were still to come, a forecast which became fact the next day when Carboline let another 30 go.   ...

Last week was a bad one for paint geeks who were forced to watch their ranks diminish by nearly 400 after layoffs at Pittsburgh, Rust-Oleum, Ace Hardware and Chemours—a leading producer of TiO2.  That bloodbath leaving Dan Calkins’ opportunism as the week’s only good news.    Which was only good for independent paint retailers .   Combined with layoffs at Pittsburgh , Behr , Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore during the second half of last year and more than 1,000 of us have lost our...

The economy of the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression in 1936, with unemployment down to 15% from its high of 25% in 1933.  With Gross Domestic Product also on the rise, things were probably looking up for the first time since 1929 in my grandfather’s Bronx, New York, paint store.    In an era before DIY projects and ready-made paints, customers in Gramps’ store were all painters, buying lead, solvent, pigments and driers in bulk before blending their own unique...