The workload is odd? One of our best customers is a high end refrigerator/freezer manufacturer. They have my dept (cnc machinery) very busy cutting a lot of metal. The rest of the shop is rather slow. The cnc dept also produces the patterns, that keeps the pattern shop, foundry, and mold shop busy. We aren't making a lot of patterns at the moment. That generally leads to a slower period in the not so distant future. You build top dollar homes for the high end customer. Right now, that's the customer keeping us hopping.
When the economy sucks, it's good for those who have, that can scoop up things on the cheap. Those who have not, suffer the most. Could that be what we are seeing?