Officials with Mid Continent Nail warned Tuesday the company's future is still in question as steel tariffs continue.
But Labor Day has come and gone without an announcement of closure.
"If we thought things looked absolutely impossible, almost certainly the parent company would have shut down by Labor Day," spokesperson Jim Glassman said in a conference call Tuesday with reporters.
The company has shed approximately 165 jobs since the tariffs became effective in June and orders have plummeted 80 percent, according to operations manager Chris Pratt. Approximately 335 people are employed at the Poplar Bluff factory today, he said.
The process that could grant the company an exemption from tariffs on the raw material needed to produce their nails meanwhile has effectively halted, Pratt said during the conference call.
The federal government has stopped making decisions on the approximately 20,000 requests for exemptions, attorneys for Mid Continent said.
The current process allows objections to be made to a request for exemption. Mid Continent's application received two, from U.S. operations that said domestic product could meet the nail manufacturer's need for steel wire.
Federal officials are determining now if the application process should be changed to allow responses to objections.
While Mid Continent disputes the objections, company officials also say this shift could cost the company critical time.
Current costs for raw material are higher than the cost of finished products from foreign competitors, Pratt said. The tariffs are imposed only on the raw material to make nails, but not on the nails sold in the U.S. by companies based in countries like China, Turkey and Oman.
"No business can be expected to incur significant losses month in and month out, on an indefinite basis, with no relief in sight," said Pratt, who has been with the company 29 years.
The tariffs became effective June 1, he said. The company filed for exemptions June 18 and a comment period on their request closed Aug. 17.
Pratt argues U.S. companies could only offer 10 percent of the raw material needed by the Poplar Bluff factory on a monthly basis.
"Our requests for exclusion are premised on the idea or fact that the U.S. industry is unable to supply all of Mid Continent needs that it has been sourcing from its parent in Mexico," said Adam Gordon, who prepared the exclusion request and responses.
Company officials met two weeks ago with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and continue to ask Ross and President Donald Trump for immediate approval of their request.
The company announced in late June that 60 employees were being laid off because of the tariffs. A spokesperson for the company later said the workers were temporary staff whose contract had ended.
Other job losses have been through attrition, Pratt said, as employees found other jobs.
No notices have been filed with the state regarding a mass layoff, according to the Department of Economic Development. The U.S. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act sets rules that provide protection for workers and their families when a company of more than 100 full-time employees shuts down or reduces staff.
The company has also not filed any new cases under the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, which provides assistance to employees who have lost their job to foreign trade.
The tariffs were issued under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows unlimited tariffs if the Commerce Department finds imports threaten national security.