Manufacturers face skilled-worker shortage

[RandomGuy]

It is, by many means acute. The jobs are there, the labor force is not.

You want something a president can help with, this is it.

As the additional costs imposed by high oil prices, as well as other factors, make manufacturing jobs creep back home, we need to figure out how to meet this demand. Vocational grants?

The demand is there, and so is the loss to the economy from a lack of workers.

-------------------------------------------

Bucks and Montgomery County manufacturers are meeting Wednesday morning to talk about a key issue - after years of declines in manufacturing employment, they are facing looming shortages of highly skilled workers.

"It's a huge problem," said Lisa Christman, senior human resources director at the K'nex toy manufacturing company in Hatfield and one of the organizers of Wednesday's meeting.

Christman doesn't have to walk far from her office at K'nex to the factory floor, where injection molding machines spit out the brightly colored rods and connectors that combine to create construction-toy roller coasters and Ferris wheels.

From her vantage point, she can see some of her company's most important employees - the 18 toolmakers who create the molds that are the heart of the operation.

A third of them, she said, are within 10 years of retirement. Experienced toolmakers are hard to find and "a toolmaker takes 10 years to become proficient."

"We're not the only ones" worried about a skills gap. There are also shortages, she said, in people trained to be machinists and setup technicians.

So eager are the area's manufacturers to address the issue of a looming shortage of skilled manufacturing employees that they are forming their own grassroots group - the Bux-Mont Manufacturing Consortium. The Wednesday meeting, to be at the North Montco Technical Career Center in Lansdale, is its second.

On the agenda are discussions of how to engage trade schools in the region to build a talent pipeline and a review of existing training funding and availability through government workforce investment boards and community colleges.

The group was just beginning to galvanize last spring when the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology announced that it would close its precision machining program. Enrollment had dwindled to five students.

Local manufacturers rallied, unsuccessfully, to keep the program open.

In the fall, the Bucks County Workforce Investment Board chose the school to host a manufacturing job fair. Nearly every manufacturer that set up a table at the event was looking for a machinist.

Some said that they would hire a machinist even without an immediate opening, just to get them on the payroll.

K'nex toolmakers earn between $18 and $30 an hour, and must work 55 hours weekly. Even the lowest paid earns more than $1,100 a week with overtime.

"What we have to do is make sure that manufacturing jobs are attractive to parents, teachers, and students," Christman said.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-02-29/business/31111016_1_toolmakers-precision-machining-program-aid-manufacturers

Take this story and a few others.

The slight re-shoring of such jobs doesn't make a lot of mainstream news since it isn't one of those sensationalistic tidbits, but it is worth noting.

[TeyshaBlue]

It is, by many means acute. The jobs are there, the labor force is not.

You want something a president can help with, this is it.

As the additional costs imposed by high oil prices, as well as other factors, make manufacturing jobs creep back home, we need to figure out how to meet this demand. Vocational grants?

The demand is there, and so is the loss to the economy from a lack of workers.

-------------------------------------------

Bucks and Montgomery County manufacturers are meeting Wednesday morning to talk about a key issue - after years of declines in manufacturing employment, they are facing looming shortages of highly skilled workers.

"It's a huge problem," said Lisa Christman, senior human resources director at the K'nex toy manufacturing company in Hatfield and one of the organizers of Wednesday's meeting.

Christman doesn't have to walk far from her office at K'nex to the factory floor, where injection molding machines spit out the brightly colored rods and connectors that combine to create construction-toy roller coasters and Ferris wheels.

From her vantage point, she can see some of her company's most important employees - the 18 toolmakers who create the molds that are the heart of the operation.

A third of them, she said, are within 10 years of retirement. Experienced toolmakers are hard to find and "a toolmaker takes 10 years to become proficient."

"We're not the only ones" worried about a skills gap. There are also shortages, she said, in people trained to be machinists and setup technicians.

So eager are the area's manufacturers to address the issue of a looming shortage of skilled manufacturing employees that they are forming their own grassroots group - the Bux-Mont Manufacturing Consortium. The Wednesday meeting, to be at the North Montco Technical Career Center in Lansdale, is its second.

On the agenda are discussions of how to engage trade schools in the region to build a talent pipeline and a review of existing training funding and availability through government workforce investment boards and community colleges.

The group was just beginning to galvanize last spring when the Middle Bucks Institute of Technology announced that it would close its precision machining program. Enrollment had dwindled to five students.

Local manufacturers rallied, unsuccessfully, to keep the program open.

In the fall, the Bucks County Workforce Investment Board chose the school to host a manufacturing job fair. Nearly every manufacturer that set up a table at the event was looking for a machinist.

Some said that they would hire a machinist even without an immediate opening, just to get them on the payroll.

K'nex toolmakers earn between $18 and $30 an hour, and must work 55 hours weekly. Even the lowest paid earns more than $1,100 a week with overtime.

"What we have to do is make sure that manufacturing jobs are attractive to parents, teachers, and students," Christman said.

http://articles.philly.com/2012-02-29/business/31111016_1_toolmakers-precision-machining-program-aid-manufacturers

Take this story and a few others.

The slight re-shoring of such jobs doesn't make a lot of mainstream news since it isn't one of those sensationalistic tidbits, but it is worth noting.

I like the thought of vocational grants, but given the recent exposure of ATI and other training school cash grabs, I'm a little leary of a blank check.

Moving that cash into the public school vocatiional programs makes alot of sense, IMO.

[boutons_deux]

"highly skilled workers" making $55K/year?

Union busting and the VRWC War on Employees has paid off for employers very handsomely, as intended. Human-Americans pitted against 3rd world desperate semi-slaves.

The game in USA now is playing with money, "financialization of the economy", not bashing/molding metal and plastic.

[leemajors]

3h_pp8CHEQ0

[DarrinS]

3h_pp8CHEQ0

Great video. Yes, we need more skilled workers and less young people with liberal arts degrees bitching about their mountain of student debt and begging for their 50K starting salary.

[leemajors]

Great video. Yes, we need more skilled workers and less young people with liberal arts degrees bitching about their mountain of student debt and begging for their 50K starting salary.

Why did you bother writing anything past we need more skilled workers?

[boutons_deux]

"liberal arts degrees bitching about their mountain of student debt and begging for their 50K starting salary."

lots of law grads are out of work, along with 1000s of vet lawyers.

Finance sector recruits aggressively all the top college grads and sucks that talent into their corrupt casino.

liberal arts education isn't the main reason college grads can't find jobs

[GSH]

Right now, just an hour's drive south of San Antonio, there are employers begging for qualified employees. I was at a conference last week, and they are literally begging for people who want to work. A couple of them talked about trying to hire drivers (at a really good salary BTW) and weeding through hundreds of candidates. And then over 50% of them fail the drug test. Some have actually hired people straight out of jail, because they will test clean. Machinists? Can't find 'em, and can't get people to stay around to be trained, once they find out what a machinist really does.

[GSH]

lots of law grads are out of work, along with 1000s of vet lawyers.

Good. We've known for more than a decade we had too many. Maybe they should become machinists, to make ends meet.

Finance sector recruits aggressively all the top college grads and sucks that talent into their corrupt casino.

So the best and brightest are attracted to jobs that pay money, while the losers become "social entrepreneurs"? Thanks Captain Obvious.

liberal arts education isn't the main reason college grads can't find jobs

Nothing about Gender Studies qualifies them for the jobs that are available. If you don't see the connection... well, you're probably one of them.




http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/the-lawyer-surplus-state-by-state/


The Lawyer Surplus, State by State

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

We’ve written before about the tough job market for recent law-school graduates. The climate is hard partly because of the weak economy, but also partly because the nation’s law schools are churning out many more lawyers than the economy needs even in the long run.

[Yonivore]

This all started when schools phased out vocational education, wood shop, and auto mechanics classes and had the brilliant idea that 100% of High School Students should be prepped for college.

[DarrinS]

This all started when schools phased out vocational education, wood shop, and auto mechanics classes and had the brilliant idea that 100% of High School Students should be prepped for college.


Yep.

[DarrinS]

Why did you bother writing anything past we need more skilled workers?


We need more skilled workers and fewer "educated" people with zero skills. I know -- somewhat redundant.

[TeyshaBlue]

This all started when schools phased out vocational education, wood shop, and auto mechanics classes and had the brilliant idea that 100% of High School Students should be prepped for college.

This is a common meme, but it's not exactly accurate.

Voc Ed was never phased out. You can argue it was de-emphasized, and I would probably agree to a point. There was no single, brilliant idea that led to the college fastrack...it was a cumulation of many initiatives loosely based upon the underlying principles of No Child Left Behind.

[GSH]

The thing that kills me is that people like Boutons are too damn stupid to figure out that getting a degree for which there is virtually no demand is going to leave you without a job. He pretty much proved the point with the stupid comment about lawyers. Too many lawyers coming out of college means lots of unemployed lawyers. You've got to be trying to be that damn ignorant.

[GSH]

This is a common meme, but it's not exactly accurate.

Voc Ed was never phased out. You can argue it was de-emphasized, and I would probably agree to a point. There was no single, brilliant idea that led to the college fastrack...it was a cumulation of many initiatives loosely based upon the underlying principles of No Child Left Behind.


Oh fuck me... "it's Bush's fault". The Battle Hymn of the Repugnant. The absolute fucking lowest common denominator.

[MannyIsGod]

I took vocational classes in high school. Granted, that was over a decade ago, but I dout they've been phased out in that time.

[TeyshaBlue]

Oh fuck me... "it's Bush's fault". The Battle Hymn of the Repugnant. The absolute fucking lowest common denominator.

No, you miss the point entirely. What part of "cumulation of many initiatives loosely based upon the underlying principles " do you not understand?

[TeyshaBlue]

I took vocational classes in high school. Granted, that was over a decade ago, but I dout they've been phased out in that time.

My son is working towards his ASE certification as a mechanic via our school district's incredible Voc Ed programs. When he graduates High School, he will have his certification and will probably out earn me.:lol

[DarrinS]

I took vocational classes in high school. Granted, that was over a decade ago, but I dout they've been phased out in that time.


I think Tesha's point has been made. Not literally phased out, just de-emphasized.

[MannyIsGod]

I completely agree not everyone should go to college. I know most people here have agreed with that point on several occasions.

[TeyshaBlue]

He could've graduated as a meteorologist.:p:

[DarrinS]

This is actually good news for the skilled workers that are out there. They will have more choices and make more $$.

[Wild Cobra]

If you have an area that cannot find enough qualified people, then what does that say about the schools in the area? manufacturing isn't that difficult.

[Stringer_Bell]

Great video. Yes, we need more skilled workers and less young people with liberal arts degrees bitching about their mountain of student debt and begging for their 50K starting salary.

Agreed, however, I don't think the whole liberal arts boom of the 2000s is to blame for this shortage. It probably started before that, to which I would lay blame to the schools themselves for being unable get out to the local communities and really drive home the point of how profitable and neccessary manufacturing jobs are to those regions and the country itself.

So basically, I agree with the Repug posting above me. :rolleyes

[DMX7]

So why aren't the unemployed, especially those who have run out of unemployment checks, flocking to vocational schools? And why aren't the for-profit schools trying to capitalize on this?

[jack sommerset]

So why aren't the unemployed, especially those who have run out of unemployment checks, flocking to vocational schools? And why aren't the for-profit schools trying to capitalize on this?


They need to offer unlimited vacations then the herd of job seekers will drive to the promise land. God bless.

[TeyshaBlue]

So why aren't the unemployed, especially those who have run out of unemployment checks, flocking to vocational schools? And why aren't the for-profit schools trying to capitalize on this?

Not sure if serious.

[GSH]

So why aren't the unemployed, especially those who have run out of unemployment checks, flocking to vocational schools? And why aren't the for-profit schools trying to capitalize on this?

I taught at a community college while I was in graduate school. I didn't know it had basically become a for-profit school. I had students that did virtually nothing for the semester, and I gave them F's. They complained (shocker) and the dean came to me and let me know that those students would lose their funding. I told him that wasn't my problem. I didn't get renewed for my teaching job. I found out later that he changed their grades anyway.

I'm sure they aren't all alike, but I think a lot of the for-profits don't care about anything but keeping the cattle running through the chutes. To be fair, I've heard that some of them really are partnering with industries to prepare employees specifically for their needs.

For the record, I tried to work with the students that were failing. One of them actually told me that he would have enough money left over from his grant to buy a new guitar and amp, and that was the only reason he was there. (I really wish I was making that up.) I got the impression that they knew they weren't supposed to get failing grades, and I was the only one who wasn't in on the joke.

[DMX7]

What were you teaching?

[Winehole23]

San Antonio College?

[DarkReign]

Those companies looking for machinists need to setup a job fair in Metro Detroit. Boom, problem solved.

[RandomGuy]

This all started when schools phased out vocational education, wood shop, and auto mechanics classes and had the brilliant idea that 100% of High School Students should be prepped for college.

We cut funding for schools and then get shocked that schools cut out things besides basic literacy and math?


Really? That's what you are going with?

I swear, if a Republican anywhere got caught munching on dead babies, you would spin that to be some liberal plot.

[boutons_deux]

:lol never met an unemployed lawyer who graduated from a semi-decent law school :lol

1000s of law grads, of course deeply in debt, are suing the predatory law schools for effectively promising jobs if one attended their law school.

10s of 1000s of lawyers are out of work in the Banskters' Great Depression, many doing pro bono work just to keep finger in legal work.

[RandomGuy]

So why aren't the unemployed, especially those who have run out of unemployment checks, flocking to vocational schools? And why aren't the for-profit schools trying to capitalize on this?

Vocational schools tend to cost money.

Simple demand for the kinds of skills required will drive wages up for them, and that will make it economical for companies to pay people to learn the skills over time.

[TeyshaBlue]

We cut funding for schools and then get shocked that schools cut out things besides basic literacy and math?


Really? That's what you are going with?

I swear, if a Republican anywhere got caught munching on dead babies, you would spin that to be some liberal plot.

In all fairness, RG, the burgeoning de-emphasis on vocational programs lead what most refer to as funding reductions by a couple of decades.

[RandomGuy]

Close How to Grow Manufacturing in the U.S.


Howard Wial - Howard Wial, a fellow for the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, directs the Brookings' Metropolitan Economy Initiative and conducts research on urban and regional issues.

Beyond trade policy, there are four things federal and state governments should do to encourage more U.S. manufacturing that is innovative and provides good jobs for less educated workers:


First, they should fund advanced manufacturing centers that would conduct research on engineering problems that are useful to a wide range of manufacturers but that are more applied than the problems that typically concern university labs -- for example, joining together different kinds of materials. These centers would also help manufacturers -- especially small and medium-sized suppliers -- apply it. They would help companies implement technologies and business processes that improve coordination between assemblers and suppliers.

Second, state and federal governments should offer competitive grants to self-organized groups of manufacturers and related organizations, such as colleges and unions. These grants would help manufacturers solve problems they have in common, but which they cannot solve individually because of market failures. Groups could be organized on a regional basis within an industry (e.g., aerospace suppliers in Connecticut) to help solve local problems (such as training production workers). They could be organized on the basis of geographically far-flung supply chains (e.g., a U.S. aerospace manufacturer and all its U.S. suppliers) to help assemblers and suppliers work together more effectively.

Third, expanding and modernizing the federal-state Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program is a priority. This long underfunded program, which helps small and medium-sized manufacturers become more productive, has finally gotten needed additional resources under the Obama administration. The new funding should be used, among other things, to help firms design new products, find new markets for existing products, and distribute products. MEP field agents should also receive training from the advanced manufacturing centers so that they can better help firms find and eliminate defects, understand the true costs and benefits of offshoring, and choose the best materials for their products.

Finally, both federal and state governments should assist only manufacturers that have, or are following a realistic plan to achieve, reasonably high productivity, pay, and benefits given their industry and location. Government assistance to manufacturers makes sense only if helps achieve the goals that make manufacturing worth supporting. Low-productivity, low-paying manufacturers that have no reasonable prospect of improving don't further those goals.

Is it realistic to advocate new government spending to assist manufacturers at a time of fiscal stringency? Yes, because there are other programs that can be cut to provide the funding. Most states have huge budgets to recruit new firms. The federal government has a host of economically unjustifiable subsidies for industries such as oil and gas and agribusiness. Government support for America's existing manufacturing base is important enough to justify cutting state and federal spending in these areas. We can provide that support, or we can continue down our current path of bigger trade deficits, less innovation, and economic inequality of Gilded Age proportions.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/02/how-to-grow-manufacturing-in-the-us/71342/

[RandomGuy]

ASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lack of a public policy on manufacturing is the main obstacle to a vibrant factory sector in the United States, according to a study which also dismissed the notion that high wages are frustrating growth.

The study by the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution comes amid a push by both politicians and business groups to put factories at the center of the economy.

But these efforts could fall flat without a framework similar to that in countries like Germany and Canada where factory job losses have been minimal.

“There is lack of political will to do anything about it and that has been true for a long period of time,” said Howard Wial, an economist and fellow at Brookings. “We let manufacturing shed jobs and we let offshoring happen to a much greater degree than almost any other advanced country.”

Manufacturing lost dominance in the economy in the 1980s as companies shipped work to low-cost countries in Asia, particularly China. Between June 1979 and December 2009, the country lost 41 percent of its manufacturing jobs, the study said.

The loss of factory jobs worsened further, with manufacturing’s total share of employment falling to 8.9 percent in December 2009 from 13.2 percent in 2000.

“Countries in continental Europe as well as Canada are performing much better. They shed much fewer jobs, particularly over the last decade and many have higher wages,” said Wial, who co-authored the study, told Reuters.

“They have policies and strategies for trying to retain manufacturing jobs and higher wages, and we really don’t.”

LESSONS FROM GERMANY

While German manufacturing employment contracted only 2.2 percent between 1990 and 2000, factory jobs in the United States fell 7.8 percent.

Between 2000 and 2010 factory jobs in Germany dropped 6.0 percent compared to a hefty 28.3 percent in the United States.

Manufacturing allows Germany to maintain a trade surplus, something that the study said the United States could emulate to address its huge trade deficit.

“Germany’s manufacturing success is not accidental; public policy has played an important role,” said the study.

It noted that the federal government in Germany has facilitated rich networks for research and development, and workers and employers benefit from a system of continuous vocational training.

Firms also enjoy stable access to finance, the study said.

“Sturdy worker protections ensure that instead of solving problems through short-run cost-cutting, German employers and unions work together to adopt high-road solutions that strengthen firm competitiveness in the long term,” it said.

The study said hoping that the sector will bounce back and grow on its own once exchange rates find their correct level was misguided optimism. It noted that it was very difficult to revive an industry after its sales and employment have dramatically shrunk.

“The frayed production networks in such industries as tooling and electronics should be cause for great concern. The sooner the United States acts to shore up its manufacturing sector, the easier it will be,” it said.

U.S. factories are regaining some of their lost glory and played a key role in lifting the economy out of the 2007-09 recession. Manufacturing employment rose 225,000 last year, sustaining gains for the first time since 1997. But this is just a drop in the ocean.

“The recent manufacturing job gains pale in comparison to the losses since 2000,” the study said.

“At the rate of manufacturing job growth that the nation has seen since December 2009, it would take until 2037 for the nation to regain all the manufacturing jobs it lost between January 2000 and December 2009.”

PENT-UP DEMAND

Most of the gains in employment have been in industries that manufacture goods intended to last three years or more.

These have been attributed to pent-up demand after the recession, a bounce back in auto production and rising wages in China following a small increase in the value of the yuan since mid-2010.

The study said the modest job gains were likely to continue, but warned there was little confidence that the trend would strengthen without major policy changes.

It dismissed the argument that high wages and rapid growth in productivity were the main causes of job losses. The study found manufacturers in other industrialized nations pay significantly higher wages than in the United States.

The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the United States trailing behind 12 European countries and Australia.

“Contrary to some popular arguments, then, it is not high wages that prevent manufacturers from retaining or expanding employment in the United States,” the study said.

“Countries where manufacturing wages are higher than in the United States have not lost manufacturing employment more rapidly than the United States.”

Even as manufacturing employment has been growing, inflation-adjusted hourly factory wages in manufacturing fell between December 2009 and September 2011.