Jobs spill from ill mills and the spin they're in.

• Position: Textiles/Apparel

North Carolina's textile and apparel industries are unraveling. The recession has cut sales. Cheap imports have depressed prices. And slumping stocks have hobbled even the biggest companies in their attempts to raise money to expand -- or survive.

In November, Greensboro-based Burlington Industries, once the world's largest textile maker, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Its debts had reached $1.1 billion while it had just $60 million in cash. That put Burlington in league with Kannapolis-based Pillowtex, successor to once-mighty Fieldcrest-Cannon, which filed for Chapter 11 in 2000.

North Carolina lost 20,000 textile and apparel jobs for the year ending in September, bringing the number lost over the past five years to nearly 80,000 -- the most in the nation. And the layoffs keep coming. Greensboro-based VF, which makes Lee and Wrangler jeans, in November said it was cutting 13,000 jobs, nearly a fifth of its work force. Those included 754 in North Carolina at two plants it's closing in Cherokee and Harnett counties.

"I hate to put it in such blunt terms, but quite a bit of the industry is in a death spiral," says Mark Vitner, an economist with Wachovia Securities in Charlotte. "There is not a whole lot that anybody can do to help them out except possibly the federal government, and I don't know how likely that is."

Indeed, while airlines got a multibillion-dollar bailout from Congress following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, textile bosses complained they had been sold out. With the war in Afghanistan gearing up, President Bush needed favors from Pakistan. So the administration offered enticements, including the promise of a cut in tariffs on Pakistani textiles. Last year, low-wage Pakistan sent $1.9 billion worth of clothing and fabric to the United States. Lower prices for Pakistani products promised to further undercut Tar Heel producers.

A few textile companies did show improvement in 2001, thanks to cost cutting and reorganization. Despite lower sales, High Point-based Culp, which makes upholstery fabric, saw its net income -- excluding a restructuring charge -- rise to $1 million for the quarter that ended in October from $342,000 a year earlier.

And VF, despite its layoff and plant closings, remains profitable. Its third-quarter net income rose to $103.6 million, from $103.4 million a year earlier. That came despite an 8% decline in sales, which fell from $1.6 billion to $1.5 billion.

Greensboro-based Cone Mills spent...