Free Republic

KANNAPOLIS - Nearly seven months after textile giant Pillowtex shut down, wiping out 4,800 jobs in the largest mass layoff in North Carolina history, the hunt for work is growing more pressing. Job hunters are growing nervous. For most, benefits will expire this summer. "When they first came in, they were probably still in shock," said Linda Burton, an Employment Security Commission officer who works in a small office just a few hundred yards from the shuttered Pillowtex mill. "Now it’s really coming home that time is ticking away, and at some point they’re not going to have any money....