Another Giant Has Shut Down 535 Paper Mills, And The Wave Of North American Paper Industry Closures Is Intensifying!

Georgia Pacific, an American paper and packaging giant, recently announced the permanent closure of its cardboard mill located in Cedar Springs, Georgia. The factory is located in the border area of southwestern Georgia and Alabama. This decision will directly affect all 535 employees of the factory. The company plans to complete the majority of job cuts before August 1st of this year.
However, company spokesperson Nicole Linton stated via email that the specific timeline for production cuts and eventual closure has not yet been fully determined. She added, "The Cedar Springs factory will continue to maintain production operations during this period to fulfill its commitments to customers, while the company will plan a safe and orderly closure process and properly consume raw materials within the factory
Linton further explained that as a private enterprise, Georgia Pacific Company usually does not comment on the production capacity of its specific factories. But she confirmed that the company has started to transfer some production tasks from the Cedar Springs factory to its other cardboard production bases in the United States, including factories located on the Big Island in Virginia, Toledo in Oregon, Monticello in Mississippi, and Bruton in Alabama, to ensure that supply to customers is not affected.

Regarding the reason for the closure, the company stated that although it is the result of multiple factors working together, the main consideration is that the company believes that the factory is no longer able to provide competitive products and services to customers in the long term. The company emphasized in a press release that "this decision is based on a judgment of business and operational efficiency, and is not related to the quality of work and dedication of the employees at Georgia Pacific's Cedar Springs factory
According to the "Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice" submitted to Georgia, some employee layoffs may occur before or after August 1st, depending on the factory's subsequent operational needs and closure schedule. In addition, it is expected that some employees will continue to stay for a period of time after the factory stops production, to assist in completing the factory's aftermath, equipment maintenance, and safe shutdown work.
In terms of employee compensation and support, Linton confirmed that all salaried employees will receive severance pay upon resignation. Georgia Pacific Company will soon initiate negotiations with relevant unions to determine the final plan for the welfare benefits (including severance pay, etc.) of hourly workers represented by the unions. Linton stated that all employees will receive wages and benefits in accordance with the law until their final departure date, and it is expected that the departure date for most employees will be around August 1st of this year.
The company also plans to provide active employment assistance to affected employees, including assisting them in finding new job opportunities within Georgia Pacific, other companies under its parent company Koch Industries, or outside the company. Georgia Pacific is committed to fully supporting the re employment process of affected employees by hosting job fairs, providing job placement services, or other available resources, "Linton said.
The closure of the Cedar Springs factory is not the only production layout adjustment recently made by Georgia Pacific in the United States. At the beginning of this month, employees of the Emporia plywood factory in Emporia, Virginia were informed that the factory would be permanently closed, affecting approximately 550 jobs. The factory has announced that it will cease normal operations on the same day and will officially and permanently close on July 1st of this year. In addition, in May of this year, Georgia Pacific announced the closure of its corrugated paper factory in Milan, Michigan, and laid off all 113 positions.
Previously, several giants in North America announced measures to shut down factories and lay off employees.
Smurfish Weslock has permanently closed two factories in the United States (the coated recycled cardboard factory in Minnesota and the boxboard production line in Texas) and is pushing for the closure of two processing plants in Germany. These adjustments are expected to reduce the global production capacity of cardboard and coated recycled paperboard by over 500000 tons, and affect approximately 650 employees in the United States and Germany, demonstrating its determination to eliminate outdated production capacity and optimize assets globally.

International Paper has closed two old factories in Edinburgh, but has converted one of them into a storage facility and focused on investing in McCarran's existing factory. At the same time, the entire business of Reynosa, Mexico will be relocated to a newly built modern factory. This shows that the international paper industry is not simply shrinking, but rather restructuring its assets and upgrading its capabilities around key regions to improve efficiency and market responsiveness.
Graves plans to shut down a cardboard factory in Los Angeles, California. This is mainly attributed to the continuous increase in operating costs and limited opportunities for factory integration. The closure will reduce the production capacity of approximately 72000 tons of recycled cardboard, affecting the supply structure of the West Coast and affecting about 72 employees, highlighting the impact of cost and integration challenges on old facilities.
The closure of a factory in Ohio by Jiayi Packaging Group is part of a modernization strategy aimed at the future. The company is shifting production to newly built, technologically advanced, and more efficient large factories, reflecting the industry's trend of "moving from old to new" and upgrading to intensification and automation, although it also affects about 130 employees.
Pixelle Specialty Paper announced the closure of a paper mill in Ohio. This move is a strategic adjustment made to align with long-term business goals, and is currently known to have the largest impact on employees (about 800 people) due to the closure action. It has a significant impact on the local community and reflects the difficult choices and enormous social responsibility faced by the company in its transformation.
Overall, the current wave of closures in the North American paper and packaging industry is not accidental, but the result of a combination of macro and micro factors. The continuously rising costs of raw materials, energy, and transportation, especially electricity and logistics expenses, make it difficult for old and inefficient factories with poor geographical locations or outdated technology to maintain competitiveness, becoming assets that enterprises urgently need to divest. At the same time, the rapid shift of consumer behavior towards e-commerce has changed the demand structure for certain types of paper (such as printing paper) and traditional packaging, prompting companies to adjust their product mix and production focus.

More importantly, in order to enhance overall profitability, cope with fierce market competition, and meet the growing demand for sustainable development, enterprises are actively optimizing their asset portfolios by closing dispersed and inefficient production capacity and concentrating production in more modern, larger scale, technologically advanced, or geographically superior facilities, thereby achieving economies of scale and technological upgrades.
Although the withdrawal of some production capacity from the market may affect the supply pattern of local or specific paper product markets in the short term, and even lead to price fluctuations, in the long run, this reshuffling will help eliminate outdated production capacity, improve the overall operational efficiency, technological level, and environmental performance of the industry. However, with it comes the loss of hundreds or even thousands of job positions, which poses severe social and economic challenges to affected employee families and local communities, and is an undeniable cost in the process of industry transformation. How to minimize the negative impact on employees and communities while pursuing efficiency and strategic goals, and provide reasonable compensation and transformation support when making such decisions will be an important issue that the industry and government need to face together in the future.
This wave of closures affecting multiple regions and types of paper products in North America marks an accelerated adjustment and reshaping cycle for the paper and packaging industries in the region. The industry is moving towards a more centralized, efficient, intelligent, and sustainable direction to adapt to a constantly changing market environment full of challenges and opportunities. Future competition will focus more on technological innovation, operational efficiency, supply chain resilience, and the ability to provide sustainable solutions.