101 New Orleans area jobs lost with label factory closure

HARAHAN, La. (AP) - A 147-year-old labeling factory in suburban New Orleans is scheduled to close in February, meaning the loss of 101 jobs.

The Walle orp., which began life as a lithography firm in New Orleans in 1872, will shutter its labeling factory in Harahan in February, T he Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.

The news comes one month after the company, which is now headquartered in a suburb of Atlanta, was acquired by Chicago-based Fort Dearborn Co., also a label-maker.

Fort Dearborn informed the Louisiana Workforce Commission in a letter dated Dec. 6 that it plans to close the Harahan factory in February; all the employees will be laid off by Feb. 20.

Most of the jobs being axed are factory-line printing, cutting and packaging roles, but layoffs also include administrators, the general manager and the janitor.