PCA will close two corrugated packaging plants by year-end following Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices filed this month, with shutdowns set for Allentown, Pennsylvania, on 1 December and Salisbury, North Carolina, on 19 December.
The closures affect 168 jobs — 60 in Allentown and 108 in Salisbury — and will remove capacity from Packaging Corporation of America’s (PCA) US network of containerboard and corrugated packaging facilities.
Corrugated packaging cuts follow multiple state warn filings
Pennsylvania’s labour department lists PCA’s Allentown closure as a full-line plant shutdown effective 1 December, while North Carolina’s notice confirms permanent closure of the Salisbury full-line corrugated site with layoffs phased from 5–19 December.
Local and trade outlets in both states have reported the WARN filings and employee totals. PCA has not publicly detailed the rationale in state filings.
Industry backdrop: containerboard and box shipments under pressure
The plant closures land as corrugated box demand remains soft in 2025.
Industry trackers report that U.S. corrugated shipments fell to their weakest second-quarter level since 2015, with projections for full-year declines as retailers and manufacturers curb packaging needs.
Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence and Green Markets have flagged a year-on-year drop in box shipments through the third quarter, reflecting a broader slowdown.
These conditions have weighed on containerboard producers across North America.
What the shutdowns mean for regional supply chains and jobs
For customers, the loss of two full-line corrugated packaging plants may shift orders to nearby PCA or competitor sites, with potential impacts on delivery times and freight costs in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
For workers, WARN notices outline severance timelines and the permanent nature of the closures; local reporting indicates layoffs in Salisbury will be staged over two weeks in December.
Community development agencies typically coordinate job-placement support when WARN layoffs occur, although PCA has not issued a detailed public statement beyond the filings.
Beyond immediate employment effects, shutting full-line corrugated facilities reduces converting capacity for packaging used in e-commerce, food and beverage, and industrial shipments.
If corrugated box demand stabilises into 2026, as some forecasters expect, producers could rely more on higher-utilisation plants rather than mothballed sites to meet any recovery.
