Rose Baker and David Passmore presented the findings of their study, Forecast of Employment and Job Openings in Pennsylvania Plastics Manufacturing, 2004–2017, to the Executive Committee of the Pennsylvania Plastics Initiative in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on 13 September 2007. This report is one of the deliverables from the Baker/Passmore project funded through a contract for the Pennsylvania Plastics Initiative from the Employment and Training Administration of the US Department of Labor.

In brief, between 2004 and 2017, Pennsylvania is forecast to lose jobs and to experience declining numbers of job openings in occupations in its plastics manufacturing industry as a result of manufacturing productivity increases and in spite of enjoying advantages relative to the entire US in delivered prices and in costs of production (except fuel). The industry is driven by net exports and by business–to–business sales. Disruptions of the export position of Pennsylvania plastics manufacturing or in increasing competition in Pennsylvania markets for Pennsylvania–manufactured plastics products would further degrade industry and occupational employment in the Pennsylvania plastics manufacturing industry.

The meeting of the Executive Committee not only marked the roll-out of the occupational forecasting report from the Penn State Workforce Education and Development Initiative, of which the Institute for Research in Training and Development is a partner, but it also featured a presentation of the Pennsylvania Plastics Initiative’s career development website, Imagine Plastics.