http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-10-30-factorytown_N.htmBy Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
TRENTON, Ga. — When the yarn factory on Main Street announced this month that it was closing, it was a body blow to this close-knit community between two mountains near the Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama borders.
It's not merely that Shaw Industries Group Inc.'s Plant 76 is the economic lifeblood of Trenton and Dade County, its 440 good-paying jobs make it the county's largest private employer. The factory has been a constant here for some 40 years, changing hands from time to time but always providing economic certainty: It was where people went to work after high school, and the only place many ever worked.
By Kathleen Greeson for USA TODAY
Dade County Public Library branch manager Gayla Brewer helps Kevin Nevin with his résumé. He will be out of a job when Shaw Industries Group's Plant 76 closes.
Now the Wall Street meltdown is being felt literally on Main Street. The plant, which produces spun yarn for use in carpet, is closing in November in reaction to the housing slowdown and changing consumer tastes.
As the nation's economy worsens, workers are being laid off by thousands.
Georgia has been especially hard-hit. From August to September, this state shed 22,300 jobs, more than any other state except Michigan. Most of Georgia's job losses came in the carpet-producing region of north Georgia, says state Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond.
Plant closings in small towns have a greater impact than in urban settings and can alter the demographic fabric of a community, says Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire. "Normally, the first people to leave are the young adults because they're the least vested," he says. "For others, leaving is a more complicated thing."
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