For my next magic trick:

I’ll conjure new employees out of clear air! (Well, here at PlastiCert maybe we won’t have to).

One headline after another:

• New CEO of XYZ looks to double size of company within five years
• To support expansion, XYZ and its franchisees are planning to hire about 20,000 workers.
• XYZ announced plans to add more than 130,000 seasonal workers

Can be countered with:

• The National Unemployment Rate is down from a high of 10% in 2008 to 3.7%.  The unemployment rate in my State is 3.3% and in my County it is 2.8%.
• Statistical full employment is a debatable percentage, and can vary depending on current economic conditions, but in some circles that number in the United States hovers somewhere between 5.5% and 6.9% (that means we are well beyond traditional full employment, negative
• During the Fourth Quarter of 2018, my state had 136,917 total job vacancies.

I truly do not understand why the Financial Community (read Wall Street Analysts) think that workers are a limitless commodity. According to Wall Street, companies AND the economy will continue to grow and expand, apparently without restriction based on employees.

As always, an employer’s best resource for new employees is other employers. These days that hasn’t been enough of a resource.

Companies have been courting those groups that historically have had difficulty getting past barriers to employment. Groups including those with disabilities, veterans, past offenders, and immigrants. Today accommodations are being made, and while it’s about time, but what in that scenario implies to anyone that expansion where you require new hires is a simple feat?

Automate you say? Automation is still a tool of the major employers. The capital investment and suitable applications are something bigger companies can muster. Unfortunately, some 80% of the manufacturing companies in my state have 50 employees or less. Not exactly in a position to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for solutions that replace small number of workers.

Small manufacturing employers have got to factor in their access to potential coworkers and then positioning themselves as an employer of choice to survive into the future economy.  

PlastiCert, through simply doing what was right over the last 10 years has set itself up to be an employer of choice. Twice a winner of the When Work Works Award for workplace effectiveness and flexibility, PlastiCert provides an innovative work environment where coworkers’ efforts and responsibilities vary every day, and even throughout a shift. Our average tenure for full time coworkers is 14.5 years, and we measure employee turnover in fractions of a percent.

Curious? Talk to us about what we can do for you. As a customer or as a coworker, PlastiCert is well positioned for whatever the future throws at us.