Blog

This holiday season is unlike any other due to the persistence of COVID-19. Americans continue to observe physical distancing and are not seeing family or friends as frequently as before.

Filling the job vacancies left in the wake of the Baby Boomer Retirement Wave is proving to be particularly difficult for the manufacturing sector.

With recent plastic waste legislation from New York and New Jersey making headlines, we sat down with AFPM Senior Director of Petrochemicals, Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Benedict to discuss the petrochemical industry’s role in reducing plastic waste, new technological breakthroughs and how AFPM analyzes plastic waste policy proposals.

Dramatic predictions and commentaries about the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the future of the fuel and petrochemical industries have made headlines.

Before the pandemic hit, the nation’s manufacturing sector — including the refining and petrochemical industries — was wrestling with how to find and train enough young people to replace the wave of Baby Boomers retiring from the workforce at a rate of nearly 6,000 per day.

One of the societal byproducts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been an increased emphasis on technology to meet changing needs, and the fuel and petrochemical industries are no exception to that trend.

Beyond digitization (converting analog information to digital) and digitalization (the technology-driven shift to business processes) lies digital transformation.