The last textile mill in Whiteville will be closing in the new year.
Rudy Ballance of the Whiteville National spinning plant said the company announced Thursday that the plant will close. Originally, the plant weas set to close in January, Ballance said, but several orders came in that will delay the closing until February.
Around 110 people will lose their jobs, Balance said. National’s plant in Maiden will remain open.
The National Spinning plant, located between Whiteville and Brunswick, has been open since 1957. Ballance said he has been with the company for 54 years, and has seen a number of changes in the textile industry.
“Now people are buying so much online that comes from China and Mexico,” he said. “They use cheaper yarns, not like American products, and they get it faster and it costs less. The quality isn’t the same, though.
“We have hopes that somebody will see that we have a big, good building, and a good workforce, and purchase the operation,” he said. “Our employees are not afraid of work. They are skilled, and work hard.
“It’s not like it was to start,” Balance said. “We had a lot of our people come to work here from the tobacco fields. They knew what it was like to put in a day’s work, and the workers we have now still do.”
Most of the workforce at National is in their 40s, Balance said, although there are some younger people employed there.
“I hate it for people who have put in 20 years or more, and now they’ll have no job,” Ballance said. “This is not how I want to go out, either.”
Ballance said all the company’s employees have plans to “ride it out” to the end. He said there has been interest expressed in the facility.
“We hope maybe someone will come in, maybe set up different machines and make a different kind of yarn,” he said. “We’re all ready to work.”
