SKOWHEGAN – A manufacturer that has been in Maine for 70 years announced that it will shut down its Skowhegan plant and move the jobs to Wisconsin.

Solon Manufacturing once employed about 500 people in plants in Skowhegan, Solon and New Hampshire making wooden, plastic and metal products ranging from tongue depressors to wooden spoons.

The plants in New Hampshire and Solon closed in 2001 and 2003, and only 30 to 40 employees now work at the Skowhegan facility.

Ken Downey, Solon Manufacturing’s director of operations, said overseas competition is forcing the company to consolidate operations at a plant in Rhinelander, Wis. The Wisconsin plant is more modern than the Skowhegan facility and closer to distribution centers, he said.

“It is truly a global economy, and if you don’t think in those terms, you will go out of business,” he said.

The jobs will be transferred to Wisconsin over the winter and spring, although a small number of sales, customer service and administrative positions will remain in Skowhegan. Accounting jobs will be moved to the North Haven, Conn., headquarters of O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc., Solon’s parent company.

Maine has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent years.

It has also lost many of the wood products plants that once served as the lifeblood for small towns in rural Maine making hundreds of everyday wooden products such as golf tees and toothpicks.

Peter Lammert, utilization and marketing forester for the Maine Forest Service, said the closing of the Solon Manufacturing plant was not unexpected following other layoffs.

With the loss of the small manufacturing plants, markets for wood have also dwindled, driving down the price of logs for foresters and landowners, he said.