Hoffer Plastics is Manufacturing a Change in Perception

Manufacturing presents a great career opportunity for post-high school men and women, but how to learn more and overcome its myths and misperceptions?

Hoffer Plastics saw the need and decided to break the mold. Literally.

The South Elgin-based custom injection molder launched its Break the Mold initiative last year with the plan to prove to youngsters entering the workforce that this ain’t your granddaddy’s factory.

Break the Mold is an informational partnership driven by Hoffer Plastics with School District U-46 and its five high schools: Elgin, Larkin, Streamwood, South Elgin and Bartlett. The impetus was a pre-COVID-19 diminishment in job applications, which increased after the pandemic was established.

Hoffer hosted more than 30 school counselors from those schools in two sessions in January to give them a sense of what they wanted students to understand about manufacturing, like job growth, diversity of jobs, flexible scheduling and compensation.

That led to three groups of Larkin students — about 20 students apiece — who visited between the end of February and the most recent visit, March 9. Another group of Elgin students will visit April 8.

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