Layoffs are always bad.
Layoffs in the middle of the holidays? Far worse.
And unfortunately, after a string of factory closures brought on by the trade war…over 100 hardworking North Carolinians are about to get their pink slips just after Thanksgiving.
Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) will permanently close its full-line plant in Salisbury, Rowan County, affecting about 108 employees. The shutdown is scheduled between December 5 and December 19, 2025, per required state notices.
The closure adds to a wave of supply-chain pressures, rising raw-material costs, and increasing trade‐policy uncertainty squeezing food and packaging businesses. Many companies are being forced to consolidate operations or cut back in response to volatile global markets.
Local officials expect ripple effects. The plant had been a stable employer in the region. With its closing, nearby suppliers, transportation businesses, and secondary services that depended on the plant’s output or workforce are likely to suffer.
This is not an isolated event. Across North Carolina and the broader Southeast, food processing, packaging, and related plants are facing rising costs, shrinking profit margins, and competition from both foreign imports and lower‐cost regions. Many observers fear more closures may be ahead if trade and cost pressures do not ease.
And let’s face it – falling global demand for American products thanks to the combination of retaliatory tariffs and even outright boycotts of American goods in foreign markets is one of the key economic stories of 2025. (Along with rapidly hiking electricity prices.)
And North Carolina has taken another hit to its food-industry infrastructure, as this incoming plant shutdown brings fresh concerns about job losses and local economic strain.
Ultimately, these losses make sense given the broader macroeconomic picture, especially given all the pressure the food industry is under…
Which is extremely cold comfort to the 108 hardworking North Carolinians who won’t have a job for the holidays. Please join us in wishing them well.
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