Cutting cardboard and the signs it delivers about the economy

Despite resilient stock markets and relatively low unemployment cracks are forming beneath the surface job upsurge is cooling inflation remains stubborn and retailers are preparing for a weaker holiday season And a slowdown in cardboard box production could be one of the clearest signs yet that the U S business sector is bracing for a downturn But there are signs that companies are expecting things to go sour For one latest forecasts about the upcoming holidays suggest retailers are expecting a drop in shopping leading up to Christmas One of the biggest signs is neatly packaged and it has to do with the packaging itself You re seeing fewer cardboard boxes being ordered disclosed Jadrian Wooten an economics professor at Virginia Tech The cardboard industry in the U S is massive about four times bigger than the NFL s billion in revenue This goes way beyond someone ordering a little bit less from Amazon though It s thought that about - of everything that gets sold in stores are shipped in cardboard boxes The products sitting on those shelves are also often in boxes But right now the manufacturing plants that make cardboard are reducing threshold and production at levels not seen since the financial collapse in Cardboard box companies in the modern day are shutting down plants or reducing ceiling in anticipation of what s coming ahead in the next couple months Wooten stated But the reverberations are ostensibly bigger than you first imagine reductions in manufacturing which then hits the shipping industry and truck drivers eventually hits the retail industry It s not just a reduction in the number of boxes showing up at your house Wooten commented It really is coming from boxes that are shipped to stores boxes that are shipped overseas And then there s sort of these knock-on effects So if we re not shipping as countless things that s going to impact the trucking industry that s going to impact the shipping industry that s going to impact our local stores Most of of that demand reduction is likely impacted by holiday shopping and tariffs which is leading to a reduction in exports What s happening at a lot of these plants is they re saying we re not seeing future increase in demand we might as well shut various of these down Wooten noted Selected of them are permanent shutdowns Particular of them are temporary shutdowns But either way it s a signal that we re not going to see future demand at the level that these companies think will justify operating these plants Source