E-commerce giant Amazon's Thursday announcement of an indefinite closure of its Port of Little Rock fulfillment center means that roughly 1% of the Little Rock metropolitan area's workforce is now without a job.

Although the closure will have little noticeable effect on the greater Little Rock economy, it could put a strain on the region's unemployment offices, which don't usually face such a large number of job losses, according to an economist and a local workforce development director.

"In an economy as large and diverse as the Little Rock metro area, even (the loss of) 4,000 jobs -- as substantial as that is -- is not all that huge," Michael Pakko, the chief economist at the Arkansas Economic Development Institute, said. "For those families that are affected, losing their jobs and ha

See Full Page