Furniture company announces layoffs in Miss.

ECRU — Ashley Furniture Industries has announced it will lay off 65 workers at its operation in Ecru in northeast Mississippi.

The Arcadia, Wis.-based manufacturer has 2,900 workers in Mississippi. It said Tuesday that the layoffs were because of increased foreign competition.

In 2008, Ashley Furniture cut about 200 jobs – 5 percent of its Mississippi work force at the time – at plants in Ecru and Ripley.

The new layoffs, Ashley officials say, come amid a restructuring of work assignments in the company.