The hits just keep coming for Illinois as the state’s economic crisis steadily deepens.
Fresh off a string of painful factory losses that have rocked the state economy…
Illinois recently lost two more factories – and 590 jobs.
More specifically, Ardagh Glass Packaging permanently shut down its Dolton, Illinois plant (near Chicago’s Indiana border), at the cost of 316 good manufacturing jobs.
And soon after, Johnsonville closed down its meatpacking facility in Momence, with another 274 jobs wiped out.
In total, that’s 590 steady manufacturing jobs – simply gone.
This is, of course, a huge blow to both communities as workers scramble to find new jobs in what’s increasingly looking like a tough job market.
Both closures reflect mounting pressures in the food and packaging sectors. Cost inflation, unpredictable trade policies, rising material prices, and shifting consumer demand are squeezing margins. Many manufacturers are consolidating operations or moving production to fewer, more modernized facilities.
And even setting those issues aside – many of which are longstanding problems – there’s the issue of the trade war specifically and the combination of retaliatory tariffs and even outright boycotts of American goods that have curtailed international demand for our food exports.
Businesses are cutting their expenses where they can, and unfortunately that often means headcount.
This risks a feedback loop that could send the US into a generalized recession – businesses cut jobs in response to falling (international) demand, leading consumers to fear losing their jobs, leading to decreased domestic demand as people pile up their savings.
It’s all very rational – which is extremely cold comfort to the nearly 600 hardworking Illinois residents who now have to find a new job. And who may now find that their job losses were just early harbingers of a longer and deeper trend of domestic unemployment thanks to the negative impacts of the trade war.
Please join us in wishing them well! We’re all in this together.
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