Eleven Illinois companies announced they would shed a total of 1,934 jobs in the coming months.
The total comes in this month's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) report. Some of the moves had been previously announced.
The biggest group of job losses comes from U.S. Cellular Corp., which is cutting 492 jobs in Bolingbrook. The company said last month it would sell markets to units of Sprint Nextel Corp. for $480 million, resulting in a loss of 640 jobs from the Chicago area.
Willow Lake Mine in the Downstate village of Equality is cutting 408 workers. Bloomberg Businessweek reports the mine will permanently close. It hasn't operated since Nov. 17 after a 30-year-old worker was pinned by machinery and died.
Meanwhile Fresh Express, a division of Charlotte, N.C.-based Chiquita Brands, is closing its two sites in suburban Franklin Park and moving 656 workers to a third company facility in Streamwood. (Those jobs are not part of the 1,934 layoffs.)
Employees were notified of the closings last week, said Tiffany Breaux, a spokeswoman for Chiquita. The job changes will begin in January.
Fresh Express, a producer and distributor of packaged salad mixes, scrapped plans for a 200,000-square-foot expansion in Franklin Park in fall 2011.
Among the layoffs:
Housewares company World Kitchen, headquartered in Rosemont, is laying off 180 employees in Monee as it prepares to close that location at the end of first-quarter 2013, a company spokesperson said. World Kitchen owns the Corelle, CorningWare and Chicago Cutlery brands, among others.
Jacobson Staffing Company, based in Des Moines, Iowa, is shedding 145 jobs in Manteno and 84 in Romeoville due to a lost contract.
Hong Kong-based PCCW Teleservices Inc. is cutting 139 workers in Quincy.
Bay Valley Foods, a private food label provider, will cut 113 workers in Mendota.
Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo will lay off 70 workers as it closes its North Rush Street location.
Kmart, headquartered in Troy, Mich., is planning to cut 70 jobs in Lombard due to a closing.
R.S. Owens, an awards manufacturer, will shed 95 employees in Chicago.
Carson Pirie Scott, a department store chain, is laying off 76 workers in Calumet City.
Chicago-based Doblin Inc. will cut 62 jobs here.