4. Services to Workers Facing Plant Shutdowns: California and Canada

During the past decade some fundamental economic changes have occurred in the United States and other industrialised nations which resulted in a dramatic increase in the numbers of plant closings and major permanent workforce reductions in firms and industries. Some of the reasons for these economic changes are: the restructuring of several major basic industries; intense foreign competition; lagging or declining growth rates in some industries; the modernisation of production through labour‐saving technologies; poor management; a lack of sufficient investment; and shifts in growth away from basic industries and into energy, high technology and service sectors.