A more than 30-year-old factory in East El Paso that assembles and distributes Quickie brand push brooms and other cleaning tools is closing at the end of the year, leaving 64 people without jobs.

The 64 employees will be laid off between Nov. 14 and Dec. 31, according to a Sept. 13 layoff notice sent to the Texas Workforce Commission by Newell Brands, the Atlanta-based company operating the plant under its Rubbermaid Commercial Products division.

The plant is located in a huge industrial building at 12050 to 12058 Rojas Drive in an area filled with industrial buildings. It’s been operating since 1989, published reports show. Newell acquired the Quickie brand — which includes brooms, mops, brushes and other cleaning products — as part of a 2016 merger with the Jarden Corp., which was another large consumer products company.

“We made the extremely difficult decision to close the El Paso Quickie facility when our lease ends on December 31,” Newell Brands’ officials said in a written statement. “We are grateful to our hardworking employees for their service and they will receive severance, payouts for unused sick and vacation time and job placement assistance.”

Newell officials would not say why the plant is closing. But on Sept. 6, officials downgraded the company’s sales and profit outlook for the remainder of 2022, and the company’s chief executive officer talked about cutting costs.

It sells consumer and commercial products in nearly 200 countries under a wide variety of well-known brands, including Rubbermaid, Elmer’s, Sharpie, Paper Mate, Coleman, Oster, Sunbeam and Mr. Coffee.

The pending Quickie plant closure comes as El Paso recorded job losses in August, including in the manufacturing sector, as the El Paso economy slows, according to a new economic report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Even so, El Paso’s unemployment rate declined slightly to 4.5% in August, the Dallas Fed's latest data show. However, that remained above the Texas rate of 4.1% and the national rate of 3.7% in August.

Even though El Paso’s manufacturing sector lost jobs recently, the sector added jobs by 3.3% from December through August, the Dallas Fed reported.

In February, French manufacturer Schneider Electric announced expansion of its mammoth manufacturing complex in West El Paso, adding another 400 employees to its large El Paso workforce.

Newell's 2022 sales are projected at between $9.4 billion to $9.6 billion this year, a decline of 9% to 11% from 2021’s $10.6 billion in sales.

It had a profit of $572 million in 2021, compared to a $770 million loss in 2020.

Newell has “experienced a significantly greater than expected pullback in retailer orders and continued inflationary pressures on the consumer,” Ravi Saligram, Newell CEO, said in a statement.

However, he noted that the company’s commercial division, of which the El Paso Quickie plant is a part, continues to see solid growth.

“We are taking decisive actions to mitigate the impact of these challenges by further tightening our belt on cash and cost management and adjusting our supply plan,” Saligram said.

More: UTEP-led coalition wins $40M grant to grow aerospace, defense manufacturing in region

Workforce Solutions Borderplex's rapid response team provided Quickie workers information about employment services and it plans to have a job fair to help them find another job, Denisse Arrieta, deputy director of the El Paso public employment agency, said in an email.

"There are other manufacturing jobs available in El Paso, but we are asking them what industry they are interested in to bring employers for the fair," Arrieta said.

Workers leaving the plant Friday afternoon declined to talk about the upcoming layoffs.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Quickie cleaning products factory closing in El Paso; 64 to lose jobs