Solo Cup Co. is relocating its headquarters and cutting 420 Chicago jobs in the process.

The company is moving its headquarters, comprised of three buildings, from Highland Park, an outside suburb of Chicago, to Lake Forest, where employees will be situated in one building. Employees that currently work for Solo will move into office space in Lake Forest during the summer of 2009, according to an article by WBBM.

“Relocating to one headquarters building will improve our efficiency and our ability to collaborate,” Robert Korzenski, president and CEO, said in the article.

Solo also announced its plans to close a manufacturing facility in Highland Park by July 2009. The company is able to close this plant because of improved production at its 13 other American plants. The closings and relocations will eliminate 420 Chicago jobs, with 200 full-time positions being moved to seven other locations and one-third staying in Chicago and Urbana.

“Increased efficiency and investment in state-of-the-art equipment are critical to being competitive in our industry and to positioning the company for growth, especially in the current economic climate,” Korzenski added in the article. “We have continued to improve the operating performance of our manufacturing facilities and we are able to be more productive in less space.”

All employees that lose their jobs in Chicago will be encouraged to pursue employment opportunities at other Solo facilities.

“While Highland Park never likes to see any of its businesses close or relocate outside the community, the city looks forward to working with the new property owner to develop an alternative use that is compatible with the community and positive for the city’s tax base,” Highland Park Mayor Michael Belsky noted in the article.

Overall unemployment in Chicago, IL was down to 3.7 percent, according to the state employment security Web site’s statistics in November. That’s a 1.6 percent improvement from November 2005, when 5.3 percent of individuals were without work. With the New Year just beginning one can only hope the good news will continue to come for those searching Chicago area jobs, but with two area businesses already planning significant job cuts the verdict is still out.

On December twenty-seventh ABN Amro Bank, the parent company of Chicago based LaSalle Bank Corp., announced that they plan to do away with nine hundred jobs throughout America. LaSalle Bank Corp. is Chicago’s largest bank holding company and a one hundred twenty billion dollar financial institution. Of the nine hundred positions that will be cut, five hundred of which are expected to take place in the Windy City. The remaining four hundred cuts will take place in New York and Michigan. The job cuts are part of cost reduction measures that aim to make the company more competitive. The majority of these job cuts will take place by the middle of the year and are expected to affect about 5 percent of the bank’s North American employees.

Another one hundred and 33 positions will be eliminated when Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. closes its Chicago-based Teterboro manufacturing plant. Officially all production stopped on December 28, but several individuals remained employed there to aid in tying up lose ends. According to a letter that the company filed with the state Department of Labor, they plan to dismiss 22 salaried employees and 111 paid by the hour individuals by January 13. Like the LaSalle Bank Corp. Chicago area job cuts, this too is aimed at cost reduction. Smurfit-Stone Container Corp employees over twenty-seven thousand individuals through out the world and expects to move productions to unspecified plants. By 2008 they plan to close 20 percent of the company’s corrugated-container plants.

With over 600 individuals in the Chicago looking for jobs who have recently been terminated or will be in the near future, the city’s recent trend of decreasing unemployment rates for Chicago area jobs may end. This will all depend on how quickly the displaced employees are able to find new jobs. Hopefully recruiting in those areas will improve soon.