Two words: Plastic moldings.

Plastek Industries, a Pennsylvania company that makes plastic moldings, is opening a new facility in Richmond County that is expected to create 250 new jobs over the next three years.

State officials this morning approved giving Plastek grants worth up to $2.23 million if it meets milestones for the new jobs.

The new jobs will pay an average of $32,823, above the Richmond County average of $26,624.

Plastek is taking over a plastic plant in Hamlet that had been closed. The company is expected to invest $19 million in the project, and is moving some of the product now performed at its Erie, Penn. plant to North Carolina.

Plastek is family-owned company and was founded in 1956 in Erie. It was originally called Triangle Tool Company. The company expanded into plastic moldings in 1971.

Plastek employs more than 2,000 workers across four companies with eight operating divisions. It supplies more than 80 percent of the deodorant stick manufacturing market and buys more than 40 million pounds of raw plastic materials every year to build its products.

Plastek is getting $250,000 from the state's One North Carolina Fund and a Job Development Investement Grant that could give the company $1.98 million.

Another textile company plans to expand its Richmond County operations, offering some measure of economic relief for a region with a jobless rate above the state average.

Knit-Rite will modernize and expand its factory in Ellerbe that makes specialty socks for diabetics and other medial hosiery products, Gov. Bev Perdue's office announced this morning. The company will receive a $24,000 state grant if it creates 24 new jobs paying average annual wages of $22,533.

The Kansas-based company already employs 44 at its operations in Ellerbe, about 90 miles southwest of Raleigh.

Last week, Richmond Specialty Yarns announced plans to expand its Ellerbe facility and add 135 jobs during the next three years. That company already employs 140 at the factory, which produces specialized yarn for the military, medical and furniture markets.

Richmond County's jobless rate was 13.2 percent in September, the N.C. Employment Security Commission reported. That's higher than the latest state rate of 10.8 percent.