Packaging Corporation of America plans to close a full-line plant in Middletown, Ohio, by the end of this year, according to a worker adjustment and retraining notification filed with the state Thursday.
The company estimates all 91 employees will be affected, with most being laid off on Dec. 1. Hourly workers are represented by the United Steelworkers union.
PCA did not respond to a request for comment about the closure.
The WARN letter says PCA made this “difficult business decision” because it’s consolidating the Middletown site’s work “into larger and more efficient operations, including a new plant that PCA recently opened within the state of Ohio.”
Company executives announced during a July earnings call that a new, 550,000-square-foot corrugated converting plant in Newark, Ohio, had started operations that month, ahead of schedule. It’s expected to “further enhance our capabilities to serve and grow with our customer base in a very strategic area for us while improving our operational efficiency over the long term,” said President Tom Hassfurther on the call.
During a January earnings call, executives said completion of that box plant would account for a significant portion of the company’s capital expenditures this year. During an April 2025 earnings call, executives had announced that they broke ground on the facility two months prior.
PCA filed a WARN in Indiana in August disclosing intentions to close a full-line plant in Gas City and lay off the site’s 78 workers the week of Oct. 26. In April, the company announced plans to close a full-line plant in Virginia as of June. That followed the permanent shut down of the No. 2 paper machine and kraft pulping facilities at its containerboard mill in Wallula, Washington, that was scheduled for February.
Executives have extensively discussed PCA’s recapitalization and how the more than $5.2 billion in investments in mills and box plants over the last decade is paying off. That includes upgrades to the facilities now in its portfolio following the September 2025 acquisition of Greif’s containerboard business.
