Looming Pink Slips

@ A "shift in product demand and consolidation of facilities" has led to the closing of a Fruit of the Loom plant--and a loss of 800 jobs. The company announced today that the Jerzees de Choloma plant in Choloma, Honduras will close within the next few months. Fruit of the Loom also announced that it would help employees find other jobs.

@ The H&H Tube and Manufacturing Plant in Cheboygan, MI, will be closed within nine months, company officials announced today, laying off 50 workers. The company was bought by Sunspring North America in June, and will consolidate H&H manufacturing operations at the other plant in Vanderbilt, MI.

@ On Monday, Sanmina-SCI, a global contract manufacturer in various fields, announced plans to close its Fountain, CO, manufacturing plant, eliminating 319 jobs. The company's Rapid City plant remains open, although earlier this month around 100 workers were reportedly laid off. The Associated Press reported:

ItŐs not unusual for Sanmina-SCI to cut back its Rapid City work force to match the ebb and flow of contracts for electronics work. Over the years, the company has regularly laid off workers and called them back.

Sources: Reuters, The Cheboygan News, The Rapid City Journal via AP,

IBM Smells the Roses

Following its announcement last month that it will dedicate $1 billion per year to reducing energy consumption (Project Big Green), IBM 's newest expansion will officially be a green one. The computer company is dropping a cool $86 million into a green data center in Boulder, CO.

The expansion will add 80,000 square feet of space by next April. The new facility will reduce energy costs for IBM and its clients by using recycled materials for manufacturing and increasing virtualization use and overall computing density.

IBM has also been awarded incentive funding by both the state of Colorado ($632,000) and the city of Boulder (a $100,000 rebate program).

IBM has over eight million square feet of data center space worldwide. Project Big Green aims to double IBM's data center capacity by 2010 without increasing energy use. Sun and HP are also vowing to green their data center operations. In the expansion announcement, TechSpot.com wrote:

Power concerns are huge, and more companies are seeing it better, for both public relations and ultimately for business, to work "green."

Sources: TechSpot, IBM, Commercial Property News, ComputerWorldUK