Newpage Mill Shutting Down Temporarily

These sorts of stories seem to be coming to light in the U.P. nearly every week.

But the largest employer in Delta County is about to shut down for a while.

The NewPage paper mill just outside Escanaba is shutting down for 11 days, starting tomorrow.

Company officials have said more than once that with the tough economy, advertising money for magazines and catalogs is down.

Those publications have to cut down on their size.

And that means they’re not buying as much coated paper as usual.

Most of the plant’s 1,100 employees will be out of work.

But some will still work during the shutdown to keep the mill’s utilities running on a limited basis.

NewPage first said in February that the shutdown was coming.