Losing More Shoals Industry?

...and another one bites the dust? While it’s only a folk saying that celebrity deaths and airplane crashes come in threes, there may be validity to the rumors that a third local manufacturing concern will join International Paper and Hillshire Farms in leaving northwest Alabama.

If the demise of this western Lauderdale County company should come to pass, how many more employees will lose their jobs? Pedal faster; how much can this area take, or should we say give up?

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Who has been most affected by the loss of IP and Hillshire Farms? Certainly along with Lawrence County, Alabama, the counties of Lauderdale, Limestone, Morgan, Colbert, and Franklin have been negatively impacted. The area affected by the year-end closing of Hillshire Farms is not as great simply because the wages were lower. Outside Lauderdale, Colbert County in Alabama and Lawrence County in Tennessee will be home to most losing jobs when the Florence plant shuts its doors in December.

We would like to see some projected numbers of how many former IP and Hillshire employees are now leaving the area in order to find work. No, we don’t expect to see it reported in the TotallyDecatur. For bad economic news to be reported by Shelton Publishing, it has to originate in Montgomery. 

Shoalanda