ALABAMA A&M and AUBURN UNIVERSITIES
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AMERICA'S TEXTILE COMPANIES: MUCH MORE THAN YOU THINK

AUBURN, OCT. 22---Each year, the U.S. textile industry manufactures about 22 billion square yards of fabric. If this fabric were stretched into a single strip one-yard wide, it would wrap around the earth 500 times or make 26 trips to the moon and back.

Textiles are a part of all of our lives but most people don't stop to consider how vital the industry is to the nation's economy, says Dr. Carol Centrallo, Extension apparel and textile management specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.

Textiles is an $81,000 billion-a-year industry, employs 1.4 million people and supports 1.3 million other workers in direct supplier jobs and 200,000 more in government jobs.

The textile industry is especially important in the Southeastern United States. In fact, 75 percent of the U.S. textile gross domestic product comes from eight Southeastern states -- Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. The largest textile producing states in terms of employment are:

Not only do many states produce, but also today's employees are more productive than they were 20 years ago. This increased productivity is due in large part to the industry's investment in new plants and equipment, which has been averaging $2.4 billion for the past decade.

Today's looms are capable of more than 1,000 movements a minute, nearly four times the output of looms just 10 years ago.

Whether it's the clothrs we wear, the sheets we sleep on, or the roads we drive on, textiles are all around us. They touch each of our lives and, more importantly, they play a vital role in ensuring a strong national economy.

SOURCE: DR. CAROL CENTRALLO, Extension apparel and textile management specialist, Alabama Cooperative Extension System (334) 844-1325.