Essity makes pitch for more skilled workers

SOUTH GLENS FALLS — Essity has just added a new toilet tissue product line to its South Glens Falls plant and 10 jobs along with it.

The product is used in the “away-from-home” market, which includes hotels, airports and other places. They will be shipping about 10,000 to 12,000 tons of it annually. The company moved the line from an Arizona plant to improve efficiency, according to site manager Steve Duell.

In charge of this product line is Jenny Yang, who grew up in Troy and was recruited by Duell to come to Essity after working for Proctor & Gamble in Wisconsin.

“This is a good opportunity to move back home and start a new line,” she said.

At a glance

Essity:

Spun off from SCA, a Swedish forestry company founded in the 1600s. The name is a combination of the words “essential” and “necessity” because it makes goods such as toilet tissue, paper towels, napkins and hygiene products.

Essity has 48,000 employees worldwide, including 375 in the local area. A total of 317 work at the South Glens Falls facility with the rest at a Greenwich plant and a Saratoga Springs distribution facility. Products are made from 100 percent recycled paper.

Many of its products are targeted to “away-from-home” venues such as hotels, restaurants and airports. Clients include Stewart’s Shops, Dunkin’, the New York State Thruway, the Empire State Building and Yankee Stadium.

To keep growing, the company, which makes paper towels, tissues and napkins, must find a new generation of skilled laborers. Duell said some of the employees have been with the company a long time, with the average length of service among its workforce of about 16 years.

“We have some people approaching 50 years at this site,” he said.

But finding new employees is difficult, as few students pursue careers in manufacturing.

“One of our biggest challenges is attracting skilled talent,” Duell said Friday during a visit to the plant by new state Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-Halfmoon.

It was her first time visiting a company since she took office as the senator for the 43rd District, which covers all of Columbia County and portions of Saratoga, Rensselaer and Washington counties.

Duell said there are careers in manufacturing that do not require a four-year college degree. Essity tries to work with local high school guidance offices and community colleges to let them know about these opportunities. They also host tours of school and youth groups.

The company has about 317 employees at the South Glens Falls site and another 58 at a Greenwich plant and a distribution facility in Saratoga Springs, according to Duell.

The South Glens Falls plant operates 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

The company uses 100 percent recycled paper to make its products. Duell and other company employees showed Jordan how water is added to that paper to make slurry, which is then rolled and heated to temperatures of 700 degrees to dry quickly.

It would take about 10 minutes for one piece of pulp to complete that journey, according to Terry Miller, paper manufacturing operations manager. The process requires a lot of energy.

“We’re always working on ways to lower our natural gas and energy costs,” he said.

Jordan was impressed.

“There’s so many jewels that we have here that people just don’t know about and this is one of them,” she said.

She also liked that the company is environmentally conscious.

“I appreciate the way they run the company in a very sustainable way,” she said.