Threadbare prospects loom for cloth and clothing makers.

• Position: North Carolina - Illustration - Statistical Data Included

Tar Heel textile and apparel makers must feel a bit like Sisyphus, the mythological king of ancient Corinth who was doomed forever to roll a heavy stone uphill, only to have it roll back down. No matter how many costs they cut, no matter how many Tar Heel jobs they ax, competitive pressures from overseas force them to keep cutting. "You'd think after several years of this pattern, that it would eventually level off. Well, not so," says Gary Shoesmith, director of the Center for Economic Studies at Wake Forest University.

Based on the first nine months of the year, North Carolina was expected to lose 14,300 textile and apparel jobs in 1999, 8.6% of the total and far more than the 8,700 lost in 1998. "The rationalization of the industry is not over," Shoesmith says. "It has accelerated this year, and we can expect to continue seeing the same."

To keep their business fortunes from going south, textile and apparel makers continue to go southwest to Mexico. In January, Greensboro-based Burlington Industries Inc. said it would close plants in Forest City, Cramerton, Statesville, Oxford and Mooresville. It cut more than 2,000 jobs. Two months later, Burlington started making ring-spun denim for casual clothing at a plant in Yecapixtla, Mexico.

Greensboro-based Cone Mills Corp. canned 650 workers in February when it stopped spinning yarn at plants in Cliffside and Florence. Less than three months later, Cone said it would team with Greensboro-based Guilford Mills Inc. to build a textile and apparel industrial park near Tampico, Mexico. Cone expects to spend at least $40 million and as much as $160 million if production capacity is expanded later. Guilford is contributing between $60 million and $100 million. Cone's presence in Mexico goes beyond building plants. It also teamed in June with Starlite/Deborah Industries Inc., a New York-based conglomeration of Mexican factories, to make casual slacks, shorts, skirts and sportswear. Cone will provide the fabrics and marketing services. Starlite/Deborah will make, finish and distribute the clothes.

But it's not just textile and apparel jobs that are flowing out of the state and over the border. Textile exports to Mexico in 1998 were nearly five times the 1993 numbers. Apparel exports were nearly six times more. "It's not that production is in the toilet, it's just being reshaped through more automation," Shoesmith says. "The manufacturing facilities that will remain here in the States will be those that...