Manufacturing opportunities have been the backbone of the Western North Carolina economy since the early 1900’s. Western North Carolina has joined North Carolina in pursuit of an aggressive pro- growth, pro-business agenda that is creating more jobs and opportunities for Western North Carolina. The stimulus to this turnaround has been the ability to shift away from labor-intensive, low-skilled manufacturing into advanced, skills based production.
Haywood County is home to Evergreen Packaging, ConMet, Sonoco Plastics, Sonoco, Giles Chemical, General Dynamics and Haywood Vocational Opportunities (HVO) manufacturing businesses which employ 2328 employees with an average wage of $1044 per week.