U.S. manufacturing sees shortage of skilled factory workers

Although the US unemployment rate remains stingily high believe it or not there is a shortage of workers, skilled workers that is.  Speaking from personal experience with some of the companies that I work with they are having a hard time filling positions that require a specific skill set both blue and white collar.


We've hit the issues of the Jobless Recovery and Making it in America where the focus has been on the new types of positions required in the US.  This piece in the Washington Post reemphasizes the point that we have been making that America's manufacturing footprint has and continues to evolve into a productivity machine where people are required to maintain the machines rather than actually making the product themselves.  These types of skills require education and training that many people do not have unless they have pursued those on their.


Once upon a time companies would support apprenticeship programs or feature development programs in which employees could gain the necessary skills on the job.  Not so much the case today where companies need people now to maintain the machines being utilized to achieve such high productivity rates.


Via the WP article here

• Through a combination of overseas competition and productivity gains, theUnited States has lost nearly 4 million manufacturing jobs in the past 10 years. But many manufacturers say the losses have not yielded a surplus of skilled factory workers. 
• Instead, as automation has transformed factories and altered the skills needed to operate and maintain factory equipment, the laid-off workers, who may be familiar with the old-fashioned presses and lathes, are often unqualified to run the new. 
• A recent report by Deloitte for the Manufacturing Institute, based on a survey of manufacturers, found that as many as 600,000 jobs are going unfilled. By comparison, the unemployed in the United States number 12.8 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
• “High unemployment is not making it easier to fill positions, particularly in the areas of skilled production and production support,” the Deloitte report found. 
• One of the other key factors for the shortage, however, is the loss of baby boom workers. With the downsizing in the industry and years of little growth, many manufacturers have a graying workforce. At Boeing, 28 percent of the company’s 31,000 machinists are older than 55 and eligible for retirement, a union official said. 

 

• “It’s a glamour issue,” said Dave Van Dam, 37. “The kids come in here and see a dirty, loud place. We get oil on ourselves. Then they go upstairs and they see the designers in their cubicles with two screens and headphones on listening to music. 
• “Plus, there’s the uniform we wear on the floor,” said Van Dam, dressed in work pants and a shirt with his name embroidered in blue stitching on the chest. “You go into a restaurant dressed like this, and you get treated different than if you have a suit on.” 
• The shortage of skilled workers has also pushed up wages, though executives said raising them too far could push more work to overseas plants.