PORTLAND (AP) – The federal government has approved benefits and services for 74 workers who lost their jobs this summer because of the shutdown at the Irving Forest Products sawmill in Nashville Plantation, just north of Ashland, Maine.

Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins announced Friday that the Department of Labor certified that the workers at the Aroostook County mill are eligible for trade adjustment assistance.

Officials said the mill closing was linked to increased imports and competition from Canadian softwood mills. Trade adjustment assistance provides help to workers who lost their jobs because of increased imports or a shift of production outside the U.S.

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