Cascading effects of lost jobs from Peoria to Las Vegas
National Public Radio tracks the effects of the Mossville, Illinois, layoffs from the factory floor to suppliers to a local restaurant and finally all the way to Las Vegas, where a laid-off Peorian was planning to attend a billiards tournament but might not now, for obvious reasons.
Tammie Cox of nearby Peoria just lost two jobs, which she says earned her about $30,000 a year — neither of them at Caterpillar, but both of them indirectly dependent on the company.
At one job she tracked Caterpillar parts.
“I was employed just recently through DHL Global Forwarding, but because of Caterpillar, they had to lay off employees,” she says.
Cox also waited tables at a Mossville restaurant and bar that depended on Caterpillar workers — a place called Building G.
“The Caterpillar workers use to, if they wanted to go have a beer or a get-together with their friends, they would say that there was a meeting at Building G,” she says.
Cox says that after a promising start last summer, the restaurant found that Caterpillar workers were cutting back, and business at Building G slowed to a halt.
Seems Cox is an ace eight-ball player who was planning to compete in Vegas but might have to pass on it this year.
Audio of this piece will be available around 7 p.m. EST. This is the kind of piece that NPR excels at.
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