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To: Silver_Bullet who wrote (12620)	8/1/2003 10:05:00 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Respond to of 13094

There are no new jobs, period. Ok, maybe in China & India. And any uptick in productivity is the result of the people who still have a job doing the extra work of those that have been canned. This is a brewing death spiral for our standard of living. ____________________ WASHINGTON -- The unemployment rate declined in July after hitting a nine-year high in June. Still, payrolls declined for a sixth straight month as layoffs persisted in the manufacturing sector. The unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a percentage point to 6.2% last month, the first decline since January, as the labor force shrank by 556,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm-business payrolls declined by 44,000, raising the number of jobs lost since the start of the year to 486,000.

To: Silver_Bullet who wrote (12620)	8/1/2003 10:18:32 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Respond to of 13094

This is a particularly sad job loss story, another dagger in the heart of the US factory worker> Throwing In the Towel? Cannon, Fieldcrest, Charisma May Live On As Owner Closes Due to Imports, Slow Sales By DAN MORSE Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL For decades, Americans have slept between Fieldcrest, Cannon and Charisma sheets and dried themselves on Royal Velvet towels. The labels are staples of department stores from coast to coast and, in their heyday, were welcome wedding and shower gifts. Now as the owner of these fabled brands, Pillowtex Corp., begins closing operations after years of sluggish sales and an import onslaught, the question is, will the labels live on? "Nobody wants the factories. People do want the brands," said Charles Bremer, director of international trade for the American Textile Manufacturers Institute, a trade group in Washington, D.C. Estimates of the brands' worth stretch past $50 million. Cannon, which dates to 1887, is a "very powerful brand, and could or should be worth a lot," said Al Ries, chairman of Ries & Ries Inc., a marketing strategy company in Atlanta. Cannon, brand experts say, connotes value, while Royal Velvet brings to mind plushness and Charisma equates with luxury. But Pillowtex, of Kannapolis, N.C., couldn't make them work. It was saddled by debt, in part from its 1997 acquisition of Fieldcrest Cannon, and it faced a flood of cheap imports from Pakistan, India, Brazil and China. The brands also had to contend with new designer brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren. On Wednesday, the company announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, dismissed 6,450 workers and would put most of its assets, including 16 factories, on the block. The aftermath will take weeks or longer to sort out, but a number of buyers could be interested in the company's brands. The union that represents most Pillowtex factory workers, Unite, said it will work with the state of North Carolina, where many of the plants are located, to try to keep some of them open. "Unite will strongly oppose efforts by bidders who seek to purchase [Pillowtex] brand names for manufacturing offshore," said Bruce Raynor, the union's president.

To: Silver_Bullet who wrote (12620)	8/4/2003 11:33:04 AM
From: Bucky Katt	Respond to of 13094

The retired are getting screwed in the Empire too> news.bbc.co.uk