California Apparel News

Byer California, the long-time juniorswear manufacturer headquartered in San Francisco, is laying off 99 employees as it consolidates its Northern California warehouse with its Los Angeles distribution center.

The more than 50-year-old clothing company said that fast-fashion retailers are demanding quicker deliveries, which makes it more important that Byer California gets its clothing, which is mostly manufactured in Asia, to stores sooner.

“At one time, vessels would travel from Asia and stop first in Oakland and then continue on to Southern California. So we could off-load our goods here,” said Chief Executive Officer Philip Byer. “Over time, it got to the point that there weren’t any vessels in the shipping lines we used that called in Oakland first. They started calling first in Los Angeles and then coming to Oakland.”

To save time, Byer California would route much of its merchandise arriving in Los Angeles trucks onto its Northern California warehouse for processing. That added an extra week.

Now much of that will be done at the company’s Southern California warehouse, where 132 employees work at the facility, located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. The company will be adding 10 to 25 workers to its Los Angeles distribution center to handle more deliveries now that the Northern California distribution center is being closed.

Byer California still has a production facility in Los Angeles with a little more than 200 workers where sample sewing is done. The company has 317 employees in its San Francisco offices.