‘Why Can’t I Get a Job?’

November 6, 2024

SuperCorrExpo® 2024 wrapped up on a Thursday. Nearly 4,000 participants and a sold-out exhibition space tell the story of a robust corrugated marketplace.

Among those 4,000 attendees were several students from various four-year institutions with packaging and paper programs. AICC was honored to host the winners from its Student Design Competition. If you were at the SuperCorrExpo®, you saw their winning displays at Association Central, upstairs from the show floor. The graphics and structure categories from the competition were represented. AICC was honored by having a real-life corrugated display buyer, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, provide the project challenge for the students. A big thank-you to Wasatch Container’s Jerry Frisch.

I spent some time with these young people—some who graduated this year, some still in school. They are excited about packaging in general and the corrugated industry in particular. They walked the SuperCorrExpo® floor with a combination of awe, anticipation, and motivation.

AICC invests a lot of time, energy, and resources to make sure that we are engaged with young people in the packaging schools and in the packaging industry. In addition to the Student Design Competition, we offer the Troll Scholarships and a robust Emerging Leaders program. Go us!

I had the pleasure of joining the Student Design Competition winners at dinner one evening during the show. I went on and on about how finding and retaining labor is the No. 1 challenge facing AICC members and has been before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic to which one of AICC’s dinner guests responded, “If that’s the case, why can’t I get a job?”

I really didn’t have an answer for this intelligent, award-winning young person, with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration and consumer packaging, with minors in packaging and industrial technology.

Now, I know a lot of the labor challenge is to get folks to sign up for—and show up for—jobs on the plant floor. We know manufacturing has its challenges in that regard—and likely for office positions in a manufacturing operation, as well.

But this is someone who is motivated to get a job in a corrugated box plant.

Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and several other similar job sites are the main way this individual has been submitting applications to box plants. Is there too much “noise” in sending a job application in this manner? I don’t know.

I do know that if we want these dynamic, fresh, eager people to go to work in our box plants, we have to find a better way. Even the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation is questioning its career portal.

If you have some ideas or want to share the way you are getting good people to work in your box plant, please share them with me, mdangelo@AICCbox.org. Also, drop me a line if you’d like a recommendation and a couple of resumés.

I know some very good people.