MONMOUTH — A Maine paperboard manufacturing plant is shutting down, putting nearly two dozen employees out of work.

David Ascher, vice president of the New Jersey-based Newark Group, said the Newark Paperboard Products plant in Monmouth will close within 60 days. Ascher told the Kennebec Journal the plant’s 20 or so workers were notified Friday.

The plant, which makes recycled paper tubes, has been operating in Monmouth for about five years.

Ascher wouldn’t say why the plant was closing, but told the newspaper the company felt like it could “continue production more efficiently in another way.”