CLEMSON, S.C. - WestPoint Stevens says it will close four mills across the Southeast, laying off about 2,500 workers.

The biggest blow will be at the company's Clemson plant, where 1,345 of the 1,800 workers will lose their jobs.

The textile company also is laying off 560 employees at its Alamance Plant and Distribution Center in Burlington, N.C., 450 workers at the Drakes Branch Plant in Virginia and 110 people at the Middletown Plant in Indiana.

The layoffs will begin this month and last through April. They are part of a restructuring by WestPoint Stevens and are directly related to the Jan. 1 end of worldwide quotas limiting cheap imports, President and CEO M.L. "Chip" Fontenot said.

"We sincerely regret that this restructuring is made necessary by today's global marketplace, where so many of our products can be produced much less expensively in countries other than the U.S.," Fontenot said.

The company is eliminating 760 jobs at the fabricating plant and distribution center in Clemson and 340 at the greige plant. About 245 finishing plant jobs also will be eliminated.

WestPoint Stevens' Clemson mill is Oconee County's largest employer, and the layoffs will likely double the county's 7.1 percent November unemployment rate, Economic Director Jim Alexander said.

"This truly impacts everybody from barbers to dry cleaners to grocers," Alexander said.

Gov. Mark Sanford and other state and county officials have worked for WestPoint Stevens for six months to find a way to avoid the layoffs, Alexander said.

WestPoint Stevens filed for reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in June 2003. A year ago, it announced the closure of two plants LaGrange, Ga., putting 550 employees out of work.

The company, which was founded almost 200 years ago, also closed its Roanoke Rapids, N.C., towel-making complex, the South's first major unionized textile mill and the inspiration for the award-winning 1979 film "Norma Rae" that starred Sally Field.

In the closings announced Monday, WestPoint Stevens said it would apply by individual facility for assistance for laid-off associates from the Trade Act of 1974. In areas where affected plants are located near other WestPoint Stevens facilities, the company said it would attempt to place laid-off workers in jobs at the other plants.