Racine Sun

After decades of being a staple in Racine, Wisconsin, the owners of Johnson's Furniture Store have announced that they will be permanently closing and going out of business due to retirement. 

Beth Spangenberg has owned the company with her husband for decades. When asked about a potential sale of the business, she said, "No one is interested in being in furniture business right now. Things like the freight rates and other extended rates along with slow trucking make it tough. And there a lot of other things as well, like the multitude of the industry being short 225,000 truckers from times past."

The Spangenbergs and their furniture store aren't alone when it comes to a shortage of both stock and labor. These shortages are affecting millions of small businesses around the globe. 

Talking about the trucker shortage, she added, "The problem is you can’t be a driver until you’re 21 and grads 18 years old can’t spend four years doing nothing waiting for that chance. We’re losing a lot of young people to other things."

Though Spangenberg said that the choice to retire isn't exclusively because of COVID, she did say that the events of the pandemic contributed to an environment that made it challenging at times to conduct business as usual. 

"My husband and I are 72 and 73 years old. There’s no one in the family coming up take over, so it’s probably time. It’s sad because we’ve never skipped a beat. Even during the times we were closed for COVID, we went up in sales. This has more to do with all the other difficulties, like now when you sell something by the time you get it the price has gone up on it several times and the freight rate being up to 37%. Things like that make it tough," she said.

When asked about how Spangenberg and her husband will be spending their retirement, she said that they are both looking forward to spending more time with their family and grandchildren.