Tandycrafts Cuts Jobs

Tandycrafts Inc. said it will fire about 550 workers, or 20 percent of its work force, as it closes 121 money-losing leather and crafts stores over the next six months to focus on its more profitable officesupply and picture-frame businesses.

The local branch manager for Tandy Leather Co., 18 E. Indiana, declined to discuss the announcement and referred questions to the company’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. He said the store is still open.

Tandycraft did not immediately return a phone call.

Tandycrafts, with 1998 sales of $233 million, said its leather and crafts business brought it $47 million a year and was the largest business of its kind in the U.S. It closed the Fort Worth plant that makes goods for the stores Friday. The business struggled in recent years as its customers aged and schools stopped offering leather craft courses.