Let’s start with some alarming facts about the American textile industry:
- Over the past ten years, more than 5.5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the U.S. since 2001 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics
- In 2008, there were fewer than 500,000 wage and salary workers in the textile, textile product and apparel manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
- More than 40,000 U.S. manufacturing plants closed their doors in 2008 alone
- Only about 11 million people still make things in the US wh