Nearly 1,000 Chicago area jobs will be lost at two of the city’s top companies. Click here to see profiles of more top companies.

About 900 jobs total will be cut at Discover Financial Services and ArcelorMittal, according to an article by the Chicago Tribune.

Discover plans to cut about 500 jobs, mostly at the company’s headquarters, to help better align its cost structure. The layoffs are expected to effect all departments within the company, but not many will involve employees who deal with customers. The company currently employs less than 3,000 workers in Riverwoods, a Chicago suburb, and has about 12,000 workers throughout seven states.

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Money set aside in the new government stimulus bill to increase greener living has helped the effort to create Chicago green jobs. That in turn has helped one Chicago plant reopen and many unemployed workers gain hope.

In December 2008, the Republic Windows and Doors plant shut down, leaving 250 people without work. The plant was supposed to give its workers 60-days notice, but Bank of America cut the company’s credit line, leaving the company no choice. However, the workers refused to leave and managed to strike a deal with the company.

Most recently, those workers have become even more lucky. Serious Materials, a California-based company that produces energy efficient building materials, purchased the plant. On top of that, the company decided it would rehire some of the plant’s former union workers and pay them their former union wages, according to an article by MercuryNews.

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One group of employees who lost their Chicago manufacturing jobs is taking a stand.

Republic Windows and Doors closed its doors and fired several workers last week when Bank of America cut the company’s credit line, preventing it from coming up with employee severance and vacation pay. Because the company gave employees no notice they would be losing their jobs, many are taking a stand and refusing to leave the factory, according to an article by the Los Angeles Times.

“We need only what is promised to us, nothing more, nothing less,” Apolinar Cabrera, a 17-year veteran of the plant, said in the article. “I know the economy is bad …. but this just isn’t right to do this to us.”

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