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Report: Ohio 1st in plastics manufacturing employment
KEITH ARNOLD
Special to the Legal News
Published: December 15, 2022
The findings of a trade association report that ranked Ohio the top state for plastics employment came as no surprise to state economic development officials who cited an alignment of economic and societal forces to support manufacturing onshoring here in the Buckeye State.
“The (Plastics Industry Association) report comes at a pivotal time both for the state of Ohio and for our nation’s long-term competitive positioning for advanced manufacturing globally,” said JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef. “Plastics are a critical component for countless industries and consumer products, and with a workforce ranked No. 1 in industrial productivity it’s easy to see why manufacturers choose Ohio.”
He referenced the newly released 2022 Size and Impact Report by the association, which is more commonly known as PLASTICS and represents the entire American plastics manufacturing supply chain.
According to the report, Ohio boasts 75,100 of the nearly 1 million plastics industry workers in the country.
The industry grew 1.8 percent per year from 2011 to 2021 and 3.2 percent from 2020 to 2021, the report detailed. The plastics industry was the sixth largest industry in the United States in 2021 at $468 billion in shipments––jumping from eighth place with $394.7 billion in shipments the previous year.
State rankings varied by plastics industry sector, but Ohio ranked at or near the top across the board due to the state’s concentration of manufacturing activity, such as automobile and appliance assembly plants, a JobsOhio review of the report noted.
Ohio ranked third for plastic materials and resins; first for plastics products; first for plastic machinery; second for molds for plastics; third for wholesale trade for plastics materials, forms and shapes; and fourth for captive plastics products operations, according to the report.
“Ohio has been a manufacturing powerhouse for over two centuries,” Nauseef said. “As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio is expanding growth opportunities for industries and enabling more companies and their workforces to be a part of it.”
He credited the relatively recent “U.S. shale gas revolution” for correcting the long-held belief that importing goods, particularly from China, is cheaper and more efficient than domestic plastics-based manufacturing.
In fact, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania produce more than one and a half times more natural gas, which is used to make plastic resin, than the entire country of China, he said.
Representatives from JobsOhio, the state’s private, nonprofit economic development corporation, say that the state is positioned to emerge as a global leader as the plastics industry is expected to continue to grow into 2023.
PLASTICS, which represents more than 1 million workers in the $468 billion U.S. industry, has been working since 1973 to make members and the industry more globally competitive while advancing recycling and sustainability.
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