Staff reports
TIFTON – Turner Furniture Co. plans to open two new stores between Thomasville and Tallahassee, Fla., which will add eight to 10 new jobs at Turner’s Distribution Center in Tifton and another 30 jobs in the new locations.
Fortson and Austin Turner, owners of Turner Furniture Co. in South Georgia, say the new Turner’s Fine Furniture and Turner’s Budget Furniture locations are on schedule to open in June.
The new stores will bring some relief to the job market in Tift, Thomas and Grady counties in Georgia and in Leon County in Florida. Although the stores will be located in another county, they will require support staff to be hired at the Turner’s Distribution Center in Tifton.
Positions will be available for warehouse workers, customer service workers, furniture repair technicians and delivery drivers. The company will also be looking in the Thomas and Grady county areas for those with management and sales experience to fill the new positions in the stores.
All hiring is being done through the state Department of Labor.
Founded in 1915 in Pelham, Ga., Turner Furniture has seen the booms and busts of the economy for 95 years. Downturns in the economy have proven to be a good time to expand in the past as both building costs and interest rates are lower, even though expansion is sometimes difficult in challenging economic environments.
The Turner brothers say they are taking this opportunity to expand even though much of the business world, in particular the furniture industry, is standing still and waiting for better times. Both their company and their family history has proven to them that moving forward when the rest of the world stands still will put them in a position to lead when good economic times finally return, they say.
The Turners say that this formula has worked during the Great Depression and the many recessions that followed up to and including the current one.
Turner Furniture sells name-brand furniture and mattresses from Lexington, Lane, Hooker, Bernhardt, Ashley, Broyhill, La-Z-Boy, Serta, Tempurpedic and Jamison. It has seven locations in Albany, Moultrie, Tifton and Valdosta and online at www.turnerfurniture.com.
