Why Manufacturers Can?t Find The Workforce They Ne ed

jon_banquer · 2012-10-30T23:43:04+00:00

"This skills gap has been widening for decades, but trends are converging to make the crunch especially severe. Technology on the shop floor is evolving quickly. This means that factory jobs demand more math and science skills than most Americans possess. Meanwhile, young people have turned their backs on the factory; manufacturing ranks dead last among career choices for 18- to 24-year-olds, one survey shows." "U.S. manufacturers are in a dilemma partly of their own making. They are the world's most productive, creating nearly 21 percent of the world's manufacturing output, and have done so by focusing on high- value, high-quality products stamped out on automated production lines. But, as a recent article in the Atlantic points out, manufacturing employment is lower than any time since the 1930s because the advanced factory has little need for entry-level workers with little education. Instead it needs tool-makers, millwrights and electronics technicians ? exactly the kind of skills that the American education system no longer nurtures. "It has been an emerging problem. We've seen it coming for the last three to five years, but now it's reaching critical mass. (Companies) just can't find the technological individuals who can do production to welding, the advanced skill sets," says Randy Wolken, the president of MACNY, a manufacturers' association in central New York state. "For some companies it's a crisis, where they'll have 10 to 15 spots open despite high unemployment." A 2011 survey of more than 1,100 manufacturing executives found that 67 percent had a serious lack of available and qualified workers and that 56 percent expected the problem to worsen. The same survey said that 5 percent of manufacturing jobs are currently vacant because of a lack of qualified candidates. That translates to as many as 600,000 middle-class jobs with no one to work them. Who is responsible for addressing this shortage is a matter of great debate. Colleges would have had to...