In the same week that officials in Baltimore County proudly touted the addition of 200 manufacturing jobs at a Middle River plant that will make brakes for a new Boeing airplane came word of the county's biggest single economic hit of the recession: The Solo Cup plant in Owings Mills is closing in two years at a cost of 540 jobs.
The announcement is a blow to a county that, like many places in this country, has lost traditional manufacturing jobs. But it appears to be no particular commentary on either the county or state's business climate. As company officials point out, demand for paper cups and containers is down, and the Owings Mills plant was simply one of their older facilities. Solo is closing similar plants in Massachusetts and Missouri.
The Illinois-based company expects to eventually expand a sister plant on the Eastern Shore and will maintain local warehouse and distribution facilities. But it will end a long manufacturing legacy that goes back 90 years to the days of Sweetheart Cup and a time when this section of Reisterstown Road was rife with such employers and not the retail and residential development that holds sway today.
But while Solo's closing and the expansion of Middle River Aircraft Systems are not directly related, the differing fortunes of these two employers are instructive. Baltimore County is not so much losing jobs as it is seeing them transformed. Gone are those that depend on unskilled factory labor and low-cost commodities.
The new and thriving employers are investing in technology and advanced manufacturing techniques like Middle River, the growing Hunt Valley-based defense contractor AAI Corp. or General Motors' Allison Transmission plant in White Marsh, which is set to produce the next generation of automobile electric motors.
Biotechnology, defense and aerospace, information technology — these are Baltimore County's employers of the future. It's entirely possible far more jobs may be created in the next two years as federal health care reform's impact is felt (and if a proposed new computer center is built) at Woodlawn's Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services than will be lost with the closing of the Solo Cup plant.
Still, the closing will hurt. It is the county's worst single job loss of the recession, comparable perhaps only to the hundreds of jobs shed by Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point facilities a decade ago. Over the last 18 months, Baltimore County has lost 15,000 jobs at a rate roughly proportionate to job losses suffered throughout the state.
County officials would be wise to post the layoff notice not only in union halls or unemployment offices but also in boards of education and schools. More than ever, the next generation of workers must be educated, skilled and innovative. In a knowledge-based economy, the investment in education — K-12, community colleges and universities — is more important than ever. The closing of Solo Cup was beyond our control, but the question of whether we succeed in attracting and growing the jobs of the future won't be.