Why Manufacturers Can?t Find The Workforce They Ne ed

"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 increase their graduation rates by

10 percent a year starting in 2008 through 2018 in order to meet America's overall need for highly educated workers, according to a study by the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Six years from now, the study concluded, 63 percent of new jobs will need postsecondary instruction.

Some leading industry watchers, such as Intel Corp. founder Andy Grove and business school Professor Peter Cappelli, say that much of the blame for insufficient talent rests with the companies themselves, which have shown a lack of foresight and evaded responsibility for a problem that they fostered.

Manufacturers, like many companies in other sectors, have scaled back apprenticeship and training programs because the payoff is uncertain: Workers don't stick with one employer for decades like they used to, and a factory manager may sponsor a star employee's machine-tool course only to see that worker get lured away by a firm across town.

But it isn't merely a question of who provides the training. The chasm between employees' current abilities and the trigonometry, calculus and programming skills needed to run today's machines may just be too great.

"Taking an unskilled worker and turning him or her into a journeyman tradesman or CNC operator would literally take years," says Gerry Ledford, a business consultant to many large manufacturers, in an email. CNC operators are workers who oversee computer numerical control machines, which are sophisticated, automated tools for cutting, drilling and shaping material."

Reply to
jon_banquer
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WHAT A LOAD OF C**P, like a wife to going back to an abusive husband for another S**T kicking when he promises her "this time things are different...."

Given the personal experience of the current [potential] employees who saw their fathers, uncles, older brothers, mothers, aunts, etc. treated like garbage, and watched their homes and cars repossessed, who in their right mind would go into "manufacturing" if they can do anything else? Hot Tip: Pass the civil service exam and get on the government tit...

"Management" should have thought of this *BEFORE* they got rid of the higher priced older employees with these skills through downsizing, right sizing, re engineering and off shoring.

When companies sell off all their land, machinery, and other assets, this is not considered an employee, taxpayer or school responsibility, so why is it an employee, taxpayer or school responsibility when they canned all their qualified workers?

The first step is to get rid of the people that caused the problem, i.e. the directors, officers, financial engineers, off shoring/H1b consultants, tax avoidance/evasion accountants/attorneys, pension fund hijackers, their "bum boy" politicians, etc.

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Very well stated!!

Gunner

Reply to
Gunner

That would have meant thinking ahead 30-40 years.

For 30 years the manufacturers have been able to pick from the cream of the crop while down sizing mfg. employees.

What people don't understand is that in economic terms China is giving the US economically valuable goods and getting nothing tangible of economic value in return. What China is getting is OTJ training. They are moving towards a skilled workforce while the US is moving away from the same.

Are we not told those are the job creators?

Reply to
jim

It's the teachers fault man. Think back...we were all told "go to school, get a high paying job that is easy". Instead of being told, "go to school so you can be good at whatever you do".

My kid is 14. So when it comes time to talk about his future, I bring up moldmaking...I get laughed at. "You really want your kid to work in a factory for peanuts?"

Factory? Define factory? Imagine going to work and not having all these toys to play with. Imagine going to work and not being able to bounce around job to job. Imagine having a job with no overtime ever. Imagine going to work to do the same dumb shit you did yeaterday, and the day before etc... I could bring home any scrapped piece of steel and watch everyone who touches it freak out. "WOW, thats cool as shit man!!!" When was the last time a dentist came home with something cool to show his kids? Or a doctor? Or a cop? Or a salesman? Or a cook?

The big thing used to be get in the post office, youll be set for life. Yah...thats where the term "postal" came from. People get that job, and realize they are trapped for life in the most f****ng boring drab bullshit they could of ever imagined. Seconds go by like days at that job.

I'm proud of my job everyday. It feels good to produce. But I got into this by accident. I was so confused when i was 16, I didnt know what to do. Good thing GOD knew or I'd literally be a cook or fixing cars.

But look, we have a guy in charge that thinks manufacturing is GM. He saved manufacturing, so thank him when you see him.

Reply to
vinny

We would all be impressed, but I'm not so sure that the general public would give it a second look. They have no idea what goes into machining or any manufacturing. They're just used to getting things without thinking about what went into making them. In any case they're probably not going to be impressed with anything but the latest iPhone.

Reply to
MadHatter

Actually it seems to be the other way around. Square up a 1-2-3 sized block, grind it real sweet...chamfer the edges. now show that to someone outside this trade and they will freak just holding something that heavy and smooth. You will hear the word wow before its over.

Reply to
vinny

What does your company make?

Reply to
Tom Gardner

I've had young people look at something I made and say in absolute awe: You can actually make something out of METAL??? No WAY!!!

Reply to
Tom Gardner

I got that response from electrical engineers at job interviews. jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I've had HR types tell me, "There is no way in hell you worked these jobs, you don't have a degree!!!"

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I've heard that one too.

Also, I helped develop hardware and software for a really awesome weapon system. But once the Army bought off, I couldn't work on it any more. Not a high enough security clearance.

Reply to
Richard

It was the boat. They don't trust anyone with a boat! ;-)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

LOL... I didn't have her back then!

break

We stepped the mast today! Launch tomorrow morning.

Reply to
Richard

~45 years ago, while working in a civil engineering construction supervision role, I was assigned the task of verifying the quantities of material supplied by the owner involved in the relocation of five miles of main line railway. I spent several days with the owner's construction inspector during which we walked the new line while he explained the whole set up to me, then we sat down in the office to work out all of the material supplied.

At one point I noticed that he seemed quite interested in the mechanical calculator I was useing so I started to explain what I was doing; he interupted me with "no Gerry don't try to explain it to me, I had to leave school in grade four so I don't know much arithmatic."

He may not have had much knowledge of arithmatic but he could sure explain how to build a railroad including the design of a single track line carrying traffic in two directions, crossing rivers on both timber trestles and various cofigurations of steel structures.

I ended up justifying slightly more material than had been billed. .

Reply to
grmiller

But you fit the profile of a boat owner! ;-)

Great! Keep us informed. :)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Some of that 'Work you can't have done' is in space. :)

HR types took liberal arts & basket weaving courses. They figure that 'with their degree' they are smarter than anyone else, so if THEY can't do the job neither can you. To give you an idea of how smart they are: I interviewed for the job of component engineer at one company, but didn't get it because I didn't have an EE degree. So they hired a woman with a degree in philosophy. Then she had the nerve to ask me how to do her job, and to do the work for her. She tossed out a

20 year collection of databooks, software manuals and disks for the engineering department to 'get a bigger office. "After all, EVERYTHING IS ON THE INTERNET THESE DAYS!" We had old designs that couldn't be updated, because the parts were obsolete, and there were no datasheets available at any price. One IC they had used in their C band equipment was tossed out when they shut down that department, and another tech gave me a full box of them. That was in 1999. I finally got a datasheet a few weeks ago, when someone emailed me a copy they had scanned 15 years ago.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

That sounds like a nightmare. A few workers will understand how terrible that must have been.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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HR types took liberal arts & basket weaving courses. They figure that 'with their degree' they are smarter than anyone else, so if THEY can't do the job neither can you. To give you an idea of how smart they are: I interviewed for the job of component engineer at one company, but didn't get it because I didn't have an EE degree. So they hired a woman with a degree in philosophy. Then she had the nerve to ask me how to do her job, and to do the work for her. She tossed out a

20 year collection of databooks, software manuals and disks for the engineering department to 'get a bigger office. "After all, EVERYTHING IS ON THE INTERNET THESE DAYS!" We had old designs that couldn't be updated, because the parts were obsolete, and there were no datasheets available at any price. One IC they had used in their C band equipment was tossed out when they shut down that department, and another tech gave me a full box of them. That was in 1999. I finally got a datasheet a few weeks ago, when someone emailed me a copy they had scanned 15 years ago.
Reply to
Stormin Mormon

In reply to vinny - you state cook or fixing cars as if they are bad jobs. If there were no cooks there would be no restaurants and without people fixing cars there would be no repair garages. If you like to eat at a restaurant and have your vehicle repaired don't look down on people that do these jobs.

Reply to
Bob Millerremove.us

Plastic injection molds.

Reply to
vinny

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