Nov. 1--The International Paper mill outside Franklin -- gone by next spring, shredding 1,100 jobs.

Also closing next year: the Smithfield Foods Packing Co. South Plant in Smithfield and the CooperVision contact-lens plant in Norfolk.

Combined, the three shutdowns will cost the region at least 2,300 jobs.

Two years ago, Ford Motor Co. closed its Norfolk Assembly Plant, which at its peak employed 2,500 people to produce F-150 trucks.

Will anything be made anymore in Hampton Roads?

Definitely -- from power tools to auto parts to Navy warships.

Reports of the death of American manufacturing are greatly exaggerated, say economists and companies.

Yes, manufacturing has taken a huge hit from the recession, compounding decades of employment losses triggered by automation and global competition.

Last month, the federal government reported that employment in manufacturing had fallen by 2.1 million since the recession began. That's about 30 percent of all U.S. jobs lost, said Dave Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers.

Yet manufacturing's share of the U.S. gross domestic product, Huether said, has held between 13 and 14 percent for most of the past two decades. That amounts to $1.6 trillion a year.

In September, U.S. industrial production rose 0.7 percent, leading analysts to put manufacturing at the forefront of the recovery.

"It's not the death of manufacturing; it's the restructuring," said Peter Shaw, a professor of business and economics at Tidewater Community College.

Huether called it "a change in composition of manufacturing."

Consumers can't help but notice the declines -- in areas such as apparel and cars. Less obvious, he said, are the areas where U.S. manufacturing has grown, including chemical products, pharmaceuticals and computer chips.

Hampton Roads, with its substantial military influence, doesn't rely heavily on manufacturing. Yet as a percentage of "non-farm employment," the region's 7 percent rate for manufacturing exceeds the state's 6.5 percent, said Bill Mezger, an economist with the Virginia Employment Commission.

Despite the future closings, the region shows healthy manufacturing signs.

In contrast with the nation, which lost 51,000 manufacturing jobs from August to September, Hampton Roads gained 700, growing from 53,700 to 54,400, the state announced last week.

Mezger said the growth probably occurred in the auto parts sector, driven in part by the Cash for Clunkers program.

Also promising: More than 40 percent of the local manufacturing jobs -- about 23,000 -- are in shipbuilding.