The American Aalfs Uno, which operated in the municipality of Sébaco, in Matagalpa, closed its operations in the country due to a reduction in the number of contracts.
The closure of the company was made official by directors of the Nicaraguan Association of Textiles and Apparel Industry (Anitec), who say it is the first company in the U.S. capital sector to close in the country.
The closing of the Fusion S.A. maquila located in the Tipitapa zone is the third one in a month.
The company requested the Ministry of Labor for a temporary, 30-day closing. It originally operated with 400 employees and had already reduced its staff to 137.
Rafael Lara reported statements from Alberto Carlos Guadamuz, attorney for the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, CENIDH, to Elnuevodiario.com.ni: "The workers noted that they were earning a monthly salary of 4 thousand Cordobas in normal times. However, in recent months, they were only getting 2,150 Cordobas due to the drop in productivity, and it was not enough for family survival."
Yu Jin is the second textile company closing during the course of 2009 in Nicaragua, leaving at least 500 people unemployed.
Cone Denim textile from the US was the first textile company to formalize its closing when it requested a temporary, 14-month closing at the end of March due to the suspension of orders from United States. The closing sent 800 people to the ranks of the unemployed.
The closing of the U.S. company because of the economic crisis sends 800 workers to the ranks of the unemployed.
The company, which had announced a temporary closing for a couple of weeks, requested a temporary closing of 14 months from the Ministry of Labor.
The Elnuevodiario.com.ni website published: "The board of directors of Cone Denim Nicaragua, located in Ciudad Sandino, confirmed the information through a press release in which they explained that the decision to close operations in the country was made due to the global economic crisis and the slowdown in the supply chain."
The US textile company, Cone Denim, temporarily closed its 850-employee plant in Nicaragua.
The denim manufacturing plant, International Textile Group, was inaugurated in the middle of last year with an investment of $100 million.
Alvaro Baltodano, president of the Free Trade Zones Corporation of Nicaragua, in an article in Prensalibre.com, said that "Code Denim executives stated that it was a ‘temporary closure’ and that it will resume its operations in 'a few weeks.’"
Due to lack of orders from the US, the company shut down operations, laying-off 500 employees.
The company which is located in the Zip San Jose Industrial Park had laid-off 1,500 workers in 2008 as a product of the US economic crisis.
According to what LaPrensa.hn reported, the picture is not encouraging for the maquila sector in Honduras: "So far in 2009, about 8 thousand maquila workers have been laid off and 1,547 temporarily suspended.
They have already lost 4000 jobs in the textile industry, due to the reduction in purchase orders from the United States.
The Chamber of the Textile and Manufacturing Industry of El Salvador reported that the suspension of purchase orders is strongly affecting the sector. This has translated to job reduction.
They still have no data on the number of cuts, but some preliminary figures were given: at Incas S.A., 2500 jobs were lost; at El Pedregal, 1000; and at Primo, 400.
The Rincon Grande textile company announced yesterday that it will close its operations plant in the district of Grecia before the end of the year.
Rodolfo Molina, owner of the company and president of the Textile Chamber of Costa Rica (Cateco), said that the decision was taken due to the delays in approving and starting the FTA with the US, the Isthmus and the Dominican Republic.
Honduras will lose a third of the jobs initially estimated for this year in the very important textile industry which has been hit hard due to lower consumption in the US.
"The loss of jobs is estimated to be between 12000 and 15000 for 2008. Between August and October, we have lost some 9100 jobs in the textile industry," said the president of the Association of Honduran Maquilas, Daniel Facusse, to the press.
An announcement about the closing of various plants of the international consortium Nieng Hsing has raised anxieties in Nicaragua's business community about the future of the free trade zone and its 14,000 workers.
Nieng Hsing, which has operated in Nicragua since the 1990s, has already closed five of its plants. The remaining one, Shao Hsing, employs about 3,200 persons.
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