Kickstart: Economic impacts are very varied

During his July Numbers That Matter Live webcast, Plastics News Economics Editor Bill Wood noted that while the U.S. economy as a whole isn't officially in a recession, some industries have been for some time. Health care remains strong, for instance, but demand for home electronics has dropped off.

As recent events involving auto suppliers point out, even within a single industry there can be very different stories.

Lear Corp., a global supplier of automotive seating, is cutting jobs and consolidating manufacturing operations following a second quarter that saw its profits drop 60 percent, Kurt Nagl from our sister paper Crain's Detroit Business writes.

"I feel like we've been, particularly the [auto] supply base, in a recession for two years," Lear CEO Ray Scott said on a call with investors.

So to prepare for further slowdowns, the company is cutting costs now.

But for Toyoda Gosei, a Japan-based maker of plastic and rubber automotive seals and interior parts, it is time to put big money into identifying, hiring and developing workers who can help it adapt to future electric vehicles and autonomous auto technology.

"The company has set the targets of increasing digital talent ... to carry out daily business ... to 270 people by 2025 and 400 people by 2030," Toyoda Gosei said in a July 28 announcement.

Can 5 cents make a difference?

According to a new government report in the United Kingdom, an increase in the fees charged for single-use plastic bags at retailers to 10 pence from the previous 5 pence that began in May 2021 resulted in a 20 percent drop in bag use in the country.

Supermarkets reported selling 496 million bags between April 2021 and April 2022. For the same period in 2019-20, it sold 627 million.

To compare even further, in 2016-17 — just after the U.K. launched the 5-pence fee — stores sold 2.12 billion bags, the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs reported.

"The average person now buys around three single-use ... bags a year, down from 140 in 2014," the BBC reported.

Most bags sold now are thicker "bags for life," the BBC noted, which environmental group The Green Alliance maintains can still cause environmental harm.

And here's another small number that adds up: three seconds.

That's the amount of time that Calframax Technologies Inc.'s tooling design can save molders making 5-gallon pails.

Those three seconds allow molders make 26 percent more pails from the same equipment and created a strong reputation for the capabilities of the Oldcastle, Ontario, mold maker launched by former Letica Corp. tooling specialists Ray Little and Joe Gasparovich in 1996.

Now that reputation has drawn SyBridge Technologies LP, which acquired Calframax.

Buying Calframax allows SyBridge to enter the consumer products industry, PN's Catherine Kavanaugh writes.