Incomplete list of publicly announced layoffs & shutdowns:
Alabama: In Birmingham, the Bottletree Cafe shutdown, reports say the property was sold, the owners said only “We have ten days left.”
Arkansas: Shale oil company M&M Environmental Group (notice the Orwellian Double Speak name of the oil company) lost a contract and instantly laid off 2-hundred employees!
California: Albertsons-Safeway issued a layoff WARN, saying another 72 people will be laid off in Pleasanton. The new Los Angeles based owners of former British empire grocery store Fresh & Easy announced they will shutdown 50 Fresh & Easy stores across The Golden State, Arizona and Nevada!
Connecticut: In West Haven, decades old American Steakhouse shutdown. The owners say they have to “downsize” and claim they’re helping their employees find new jobs.
Hawaii: After 22 years Imperial Jewelers shutdown, apparently to make room for a restaurant.
Massachusetts: Boston Weak ‘streetwear’ clothing company Karmaloop now chapter 11 bankrupt busted.
Minnesota: Minneapolis Public Schools announced they will eliminate 120 tax-sucking administrative jobs! Administrators implied the money saved will now be focused on actual education. Bloomington based tech company Nerdey laid off 23 employees. In a complex way administrators blamed the bad economy: “Technology moves fast, forcing market demand to fluctuate. This fluctuation coupled with the pace of change in our industry has driven a shift on our resource utilization.”
New Jersey: After 34 years the massive and expensive Izod Center is officially dead, 1-thousand 7-hundred jobs lost! “Like part of you is dying.”-Veronica Jackson, employee
New York: In Bronx, HHH Home Care apparently lost its Home health Care Services contract and issued a WARN, saying 72 people will become unemployed at the end of June. In Syracuse, General Super Plating laid off about 1-hundred people, without notice! Basically all but one of the company’s laborers were let go, yet company administrators say they’re still open for business. God refuses to stop his 156 years old Saint Patrick School in Tiago County from shutting down. Administrators say enrollment has crashed & burned, they were able to get only 58 students for the year.
North Carolina: In Raleigh, the owners of 518 West Italian Cafe said Easter Sunday is their last day of business. It sounds like they’re going to sell the property.
Ohio: USA Synthetic Fuel now bankrupt busted, halting the Lima Energy Project. The company is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Pennsylvania: In Collegeville, aerospace company Transicoil announced it will layoff at least 99 people by summer, as they shift motion control production to Kansas. In Petersburg, legal drugs maker UniTao Pharmaceuticals shutdown without notice. Administrators actually said they won’t re-open until “business conditions improve”! In 2014, govn’a Terry McAuliffe claimed the drugs maker was going to employ 370 people and even gave UniTao $1-million in free taxpayer funded money! UniTao now says it won’t accept the money.
South Dakota: In Tea, Oggie’s Grille & Bar shutdown.
Texas: In Hutchins, the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center warned it no longer has enough money to save wild birds: “After 30 years of absorption we can’t do it any longer.”-Kathy Rogers
19 – 20 March 2015: “the downturn ….will be severe”
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification
The U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) doesn’t count the hundreds of layoffs involving less than 50 people each, in its mass layoff reports. It also doesn’t count all the little ‘mom & pop’ businesses that shutdown. It doesn’t count people who get a severance for being laid off.