FOX VALLEY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — You can find more than a few paper mills around Northeast Wisconsin.
But recently, some are planning to shut their doors.
By the end of July, Clearwater Paper will close its Neenah plant, leaving nearly 300 people out of work.
And by September, Neenah Inc. will shut down its paper mill in Appleton, where about 100 people work.
Ghansham Panjabi is an equity research analyst at Baird. He’s covered the packing industry for more than 20 years and says the paper mill sector has had to adjust to fewer people using paper products.
“You know, the paper industry has big plants. They are extremely expensive to operate. They are designed to run constantly. So over time as you can probably imagine, through the proliferation of the internet and PDFs versus printing them, that has had an impact on certain things such as printing paper for example,” said Panjabi.
The Neenah Paper Mill in Appleton makes transportation filtration products. Neenah Inc. says the Appleton mill closure will impact about 100 people.
Thirteen of those people will go to a restart of a smaller fine paper and packaging line out of its facility in the City of Neenah.
Matt Valiquette, executive director of Bay Area Workforce Development Board, says the good news for the people who are leaving the paper mill, is that employers in our area are actively hiring, and their skill set is extremely transferable.
“A Neenah Paper manager who said there’s not a day that goes by when there are no flyers from other employers, in the parking lot on the cars, so there is a positive there,” said Valiquette.
Workforce development is planning to provide on-site worker information sessions for the employees.
And if people want to go back to school, they can.
“We provide up to $8,000 per person to further their education on the post-secondary level,” said Valiquette.
At Fox Valley Technical College, Beth Burns, associate vice president of student services says there are options.
“If folks want to upscale if they want to change careers we have a variety of long-term and short-term programs that they can get into,” said Burns, “Short-term certificates, technical diploma programs and all the way up to the associate’s degrees as well.”
Earlier this month, Neenah Inc. said its production location will remain open for about 60 days.
