State of Manufacturing®

For me, it’s what our legislature, specifically state, is going to dream up next — new regulations or requirements that we have to do. Right now, it’s obviously paid family and medical leave. I’m just very concerned about the impact that’s going to have on the workforce. We already have people figuring out how to get out of working, and now they’re going to be able to get out of working and be paid at least some percentage of their normal salary to do it.

Our biggest issue now is what should we be paying in people. We’ve been finding good employees, but the way inflation has been, it’s hard. We had operators who are lower paid. Well, now they can go to Walmart and get that. It’s trying to juggle that and still keep your good operators. So, that’s probably our biggest challenge right now.

Planning long-term is more difficult. That’s probably our biggest heartburn. I think part of it for us is industry change and employee changes. And regulatory issues have been a big, big heartburn for us with our business in plastics. So yeah, it’s planning. That’s going to be the most difficult. We can get numbers from customers, we can do a budget for an entire year, and we were dangerously close in the past. That’s not so true the last couple of years.

With the skilled worker shortage, and the fact that it’s really difficult to onboard a lot of those positions, we have really been focusing on retention more than anything these days.