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Discover UNILIN Unilin Plant Officially Opens in North Carolina Thomasville, NC, October 10, 2005 -- Local officials praised the official opening of the Unilin Flooring NC LLC plant in Thomasville last Thursday as a boost to the area's economy, according to the Winston Salem Business Journal. Davidson County has been hit hard by layoffs and plant closures in the furniture industry as companies increasingly shift production overseas, where labor is less expensive. The new 600,000 square foot Unilin plant is the first phase of a planned operation covering 1.1 million square feet and an investment of $80 million by 2008. The plant makes the company's Quick-Step laminate floors. Unilin also has a plant on Denton Road in Thomasville, a manufacturing plant in Mount Gilead and a distribution warehouse in Lexington. "This is a red-letter day," Don Truell, the chairman of the Davidson County Board of Commissioners, said in remarks at a ceremony at the plant on N.C. 62. The opening comes on the heels of an announcement by Lexington Home Brands that it would cut 360 jobs in Lexington. Unilin employs 180 people in the county. The company said that 124 jobs have been added since it announced in March 2004 that it would build the plant in Thomasville. It also plans to fill 30 jobs by the end of the year and hopes to have 330 workers by 2008. The new plant can produce 100 million square feet of Quick-Step laminate flooring a year. Officials said that the jobs at the highly automated plant are skilled manufacturing positions. Bernard Thiers, a managing director of Unilin from Belgium, said that one of the company's concerns about building the plant was finding enough skilled labor. But that has not been a problem, he said. "We have been surprised," he said. Unilin Flooring is a division of Unilin Holding NV, based in Belgium. Mohawk Industries Inc., based in Calhoun, Ga., said in July that it planned to buy Unilin for $2.6 billion. The deal is expected to close this quarter.
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