SIC 2281 Yarn Spinning Mills

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• NAICS CODE(S).
• FURTHER READING.

SIC 2281

This industry is made up of establishments primarily engaged in spinning yarn wholly or chiefly by weight of cotton, manmade fibers, silk, wool, mohair, or similar animal fibers. Products include acetate and acrylic yarn, made from purchased staple; carded, carpet, combed, and cordage yarn (all of cotton); crochet yarn; and cotton, silk, wood, and manmade staple.

NAICS CODE(S)

313111

Yarn Spinning Mills

After increasing 12.5 percent from 1994 ($8.01 billion) to 1997 ($9.42 billion), the value of industry shipments began a steady decline. Between 1998 and 2001, the value of industry shipments declined every year, falling from $8.58 billion in 1998 to $5.98 billion in 2001. The valued of carded cotton yarn shipments, which totaled $3.09 billion in 2001, accounted for the majority of total industry shipments. Spun noncellulosic fiber and silk yarns represented another $2.14 billion in industry shipments.

During the early establishment of the industry in the eighteenth century, most spinning mills operated as independent entities. Later, mergers and consolidations in the yarn spinning industry opened diversification opportunities, and many spinning mills became subsidiaries or integrated components of larger carpet or textile mills, or they combined with specialized dyeing facilities. In the 1990s and early 2000s, these mills increasingly used high technology in order to meet the demands of efficient production and improved fiber quality—at the same time protecting the environment and conserving resources.

Protecting the health of textile workers became an issue in the 1980s. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), formed in 1970, set out to minimize illness and death resulting from cotton dust in textile mills. Referred to as "brown lung" disease, 1988 statistics estimated that 35,000 current and former textile employees had severe cases of "brown lung," and another 100,000 workers had symptoms that indicated early stages of the disease. As unions worked to improve hazardous mill conditions, textile manufacturers often opposed strict sanitation measures imposed by OSHA. In the early 1990s, questions remained as to the legality of some of the restrictions and how best to provide safer factory conditions.

An average two-piece suit currently includes about 67,000 yards of yarn composed of roughly 350 million man-made fibers, textured and colored to produce a natural look. These...