OSHKOSH, Wis. (NBC 26) — Wisconsin's papermaking industry directly employs more than 30,000 workers and generates over $18 billion in sales every year.
"It really is for some of these communities the lifeblood of these communities both historically and currently," Wisconsin Paper Council President Scott Suder said.
The Badger State is still the No. 1 producer of paper products in the country, but experts Jeffrey Sache and Suder say there are concerns.
"No industry partner can speak to the state of the state's paper industry and say there's nothing to do," Sache said.
That's why the Paper Council and the UW-Oshkosh Center for Customized Research and Services released an 18-month study on Wednesday, highlighting the industry's challenges. One includes a demand for talent.
"It has a workforce that is aging fairly significantly and probably more significantly than we've seen in other manufacturing industries," Sache, the UW-Oshkosh center's director, said.
The report also contains recommendations to gain more workers.
"We need to go right into the schools," Suder said. "We need to engage on social media."
And the study found young professionals have a negative or no perception of the paper industry.
"We invest over a billion dollars in cleaning up PCBs in the Fox River," Sache said. "That is the message that people take in terms of the paper industry as it relates to sustainability."
So Suder and Sache say leaders can provide a more positive message of innovation.
"It's sustainable," Suder said. "It's renewable. It's recyclable. It's environmentally friendly."
The study will now be sent to policymakers statewide. And researchers hope it can help companies develop a unified message as they lay a foundation for the industry's future.
"The industry needed to take back its narrative," Sache said. "And hopefully, what we provided in the framework is a structure of how that story could be told."
