Filing bankruptcy in Indiana can’t really serve as a solution for most people’s financial problems without there being work available for them. The bankruptcy law system is designed to offer people whose financial lives have been derailed, often through forces beyond their control, a fresh start. That fresh start, however, depends on income. It seems that every day there is news that has to do with employment in central Indiana, and that, as an Indiana bankruptcy lawyer, it’s important for me to keep my clients and blog readers aware of what’s happening with jobs around our state.
Unfortunately, in just the week since my last update, hundreds of manufacturing layoffs were announced across Indiana. In Indianapolis, Color-Box announced 74 layoffs at its cardboard-packaging plant.
Gannett (the nation’s largest newspaper publisher and publisher of the Indianapolis Star) announced 52 job cuts in Indianapolis and the closing of two community newspapers. In Columbus, Indiana (where my Columbus bankruptcy law office is located), Cummins announced it’s trimming 350 jobs through voluntary retirement buyouts. Chemtura, the Connecticut-based company which employs 155 workers in West Lafayette, Indiana, is cutting 620 jobs nationwide.
On the good news side, Perpetual Technologies, an IT systems management and support company that serves the U.S. Department of Defense, (in fact this company was founded by military veterans) is adding a second office in Lawrence and plans to hire 100 new workers in the next two years, doubling its staff.
As I was culling the newspapers and online news media, I couldn’t help but think of the my about Queen Marie Antoinette. The way the story goes, during the famine in France, when the queen was asked what she planned to do about the famine, since people had no bread to eat, she answered “Let them eat cake”. (In reality, this statement made a century earlier by another ruler, not by Marie Antoinette.) What reminded me of the story itself, though, were two positive business news stories (both true, not myths) in Indiana, one about ice cream, the other about chocolate! Baskin-Robbins says it plans to open more than 50 new stores over the next several years throughout Indianapolis and surrounding areas. Currently Baskin Robbins has 13 stores in Indiana. Fannie May (not the mortgage Fannie Mae) gourmet chocolate company is expanding its Midwest presence, and plans 12 new retail locations, including Castleton Square Mall in Indianapolis and Charter Crossing in Greenwood.
Retail expansion, of course, means jobs. Perhaps even more heartening, retailers don’t plan large expansions unless they see brighter times ahead. With the availability of well-paid employment, Indiana bankruptcy clients, as they emerge from bankruptcy, truly do have that chance for a fresh financial start. In the meanwhile, I can’t help adding, “Let’s eat ice cream and chocolate!”.