It's not just the toy-making elves who have seen their jobs off-shored.

Santa's new tailors are in China, too.

The last Santa suit manufacturer in the country was Halco, a Belle Vernon-based company that specialized in Santa's suits, dresses for Mrs. Claus and outfits for elves.

This year the last locally produced Santa suit was finished in May and the workers were laid off.

Santa suits were one of the last sectors of the apparel industry to be left in the United States. Shoes that had been made in New England were made overseas decades ago, though there are a handful of manufacturers still left in the States. Textiles, which early in the last century were made in both New England and the South, are no longer made in this country. Glass and electronics are two other industries that have moved overseas, shifting jobs from the U.S. to India and Asia.

Confronted with a global economy in which cheaper labor is always just a border or two away, companies throughout the United States have shifted much of their work to Mexico or overseas. Halco is just the latest example of a situation that is already familiar to the workers in Westmoreland County who used to make televisions for Sony.

Now it's not just manufacturing that has moved. Calls from U.S. consumers are being handled overseas, including companies such as Intuit, Inc., which has workers in India answering questions about the TurboTax software designed to pay U.S. taxes.

Eric Dirnbach, a spokesman from Unite Here, which encompasses the unions that were formerly the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers, said the story of the loss of Santa suit manufacturing is too familiar.

"We've seen a dramatic decline in both the apparel and textile industries," he said.

For the Halco workers it was just a matter of time before they lost their jobs.

"It's awful. Our company's been around for 62 years," said Terri Greenberg, the president of Halco who took over the business her father, Allen Hoffman, bought in 1975.

At one point, Halco has 70 people sewing the suits, not including all of the people who shipped the products, maintained the factory and worked in the office.

Some of them, by the time they were laid off this year, had been making Santa suits in Belle Vernon for 50 years, she said. The company is well-known -- some of its suits have been featured in movies, on television programs and in commercials.

The suits retail from between $100 and $800 depending on the materials and detail. The better suits are made with either velvet or a plush pile, lined with satin and come with a Naugahyde bound belt and have boot tops of Nauhahyde with white plush boot cuffs.

Now. Ms. Greenberg said, the apparel for Santa and his associates is made in China, Hong Kong, Thailand and "all over."

It's the competition from other Santa suits manufacturers that caused Halco to use foreign labor.

"It's the Wal-Mart-ization of the world. It's the best cost and the best price for everything. People don't want to spend the money."

"I guess everything is coming from China now," said Patti Jo Wiedner, who has been operating Costumes by Patti Jo in Moline, Ill., for the past 25 years.

She found out the manufacturing had been shipped to China when she called Halco looking for extra fabric to match that in the suits she had.

"The answer was shocking," she said, noting that Halco was the last U.S. Santa suit manufacturer.

Ms. Weidner said the suits that are coming from China are of the same high quality that were made in Belle Vernon.

While the plush material is nice and heavy for a Santa suit that will be worn mostly outside, the velvet is her favorite.

"It's gorgeous," she said.

Mrs. Greenberg said the company tried to keep production here. "2001 came along and we really pushed made in the USA. ... We were the last of the Mohicans."

In 1970, when the apparel industry was at its peak, there were 1.5 million jobs for garment workers. Now there are 200,000. In just the last decade the number of people making apparel in the United States dropped by 500,000.

Mr. Dirnbach said he understands the reasons Halco has shipped its production overseas.

In the United States, he said, workers make about $10 an hour, in Asia it is closer to 30 cents an hour. "The price differences are real."

The overall notion of globalization and free trade, he said, is good for investors, but bad for workers.

"It drags down wages and working conditions both here and overseas," he said.

Though the prices of apparel might drop, he said, we ultimately end up paying some of the cost.

In the case of the Halco employees, they applied for federal benefits under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which allowed them to continue collecting unemployment once their state unemployment insurance expired.

The Department of Labor officer who certified the workers claim said in his decision, "A significant number of workers at the firm are age 50 or over and possess skills that are not easily transferable. Competitive conditions within the industry are adverse."

The workers also received job training and help writing resumes. The federal government will help with the cost of moving if someone has to relocate for a new job.

Halco still sells 50,000 Santa suits a year, said Ms. Greenberg, who oversees the production by spending two months a year overseas and then six weeks at the end of the year shipping out costumes.

The workers in Belle Vernon started to see the work at the factory there taper off little by little over the last five years as more of the production was shipped overseas.

Ms. Greenberg said she has given some suits to the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, where they can take their place alongside other things that aren't made here any more.