U.S. manufacturers getting desperate for skilled people
Jim Higgins
U.S. manufacturers getting desperate for skilled people
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2006-12-05-skilled-workers-shortage_x.htm
EMMAUS, Pa. - Michael Bunner has done everything he can think of to hire
workers.
He's increased pay, offered training and recently, hired a man straight out
of prison.
While his story isn't too surprising given that the unemployment rate of
4.4% is at a 5 ½-year low, what is unexpected is that Bunner is in the
manufacturing sector, an industry that has been grabbing headlines for
losing jobs.
But despite all those layoffs, Bunner can't find plastic welders or even
people who are willing and able to be trained for the specialty job.
PHOTO GALLERY: Electro Chemical needs welders, electricians and machinists
"I'm turning down contracts," says Bunner, president of Electro Chemical
Engineering and Manufacturing, which makes chemical tanks. "I could expand
20-30% overnight if I had more people."
Much has been made of the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the USA
in recent years.
But manufacturers, regardless of size, specialty or location, across the USA
are reporting a dire shortage of skilled workers: people such as welders,
electricians or machinists with a craft that goes beyond pushing buttons or
stacking boxes but does not require a degree.
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That shortage is threatening their ability to meet current demand, let alone
expand their businesses. The gap could threaten the viability of the U.S.
manufacturing sector at a time when it is facing heavy competition from
abroad.
In a survey of 800 manufacturers conducted by the National Association of
Manufacturers (NAM) last year, more than 80% said they were experiencing a
shortage of skilled workers. In October, manufacturers surveyed by the
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said "finding qualified workers" was
their biggest business problem.
The shortage of skilled workers is the result of a number of factors. One of
the biggest is that manufacturing in the USA is becoming more high-tech and
skill-based as the more repetitive, less-skilled work is moving abroad. Such
jobs require greater expertise.
Plus, baby boomers with years of experience are retiring. And younger people
are bypassing factory jobs, viewing them as repetitive, dirty and without
much opportunity, a view that hasn't been helped by all the factory closings
and headlines about manufacturing jobs moving to China.
These factors have combined to create a serious worker shortage with no end
in sight.
"I've never seen anything like it in my life," says Bunner, whose father
worked in a factory when he was growing up in West Virginia. "When I was a
kid, people would stand in line for hours for an opportunity at a job like I
have available. I can't get people to show up for an interview."
More specialized work
There were 10.2 million manufacturing production workers in the USA in
October, down 19% from 10 years ago and 28% fewer than 40 years ago.
The percentage of all workers in the USA employed in manufacturing has been
declining for 50 years. In October, 10% of the U.S. workforce was employed
in the manufacturing sector, an all-time low. In 1946, one out of every
three workers had jobs in manufacturing.
But the loss of jobs doesn't mean that manufacturing is disappearing from
the USA. U.S. manufacturing production last year totaled $1.5 trillion, or
12% of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity
within U.S. borders.
The sector has become more specialized, with a greater focus on technology.
With a boom in productivity in manufacturing, firms are able to produce more
with fewer workers.
Innovation in the manufacturing sector means that the jobs require greater
skills than ever before. According to an analysis by economists Richard
Deitz and James Orr at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, employment in
high-skilled manufacturing jobs rose 37%, or by 1.2 million jobs, from 1983
to 2002. At the same time, low-skilled factory jobs dropped 25%, or by
approximately 2 million workers.
"The time when you can be relatively unskilled and work in manufacturing for
a long time with just a high school degree and make a good salary to support
a family is gone," National Association of Manufacturers chief economist
David Huether says.
But finding people with the right skills isn't easy.
"It's limiting my growth," says John West, president of Fox Valley
Metal-Tech in Green Bay, Wis.
Earlier this year West turned down a $1.5 million contract with Kraft Foods
because he didn't have enough welders. That order would have grown his
business by 10%.
Multiple job offers
West's firm, which produces metal machinery parts, has increased pay and
offers full health benefits, training, a matching 401(k) plan and bonuses to
employees who refer people to work there.
"You get a good worker who has that skill set, you make sure they don't want
to leave," West says. "You pay them well; you treat them well."
That's good news for Richard Smith. The 29-year-old from Chillicothe, Ohio,
is graduating Dec. 15 from a nine-month welding program at the Hobart
Institute of Welding Technology. He's received three job offers, paying $16
to $19 an hour, or more than three times the federal minimum wage. The
companies are also paying medical benefits, offering 401(k) plans and paying
for additional training.
"It really took me off my feet," says Smith, who got interested in welding
while he was in the Navy.
Andre Odermatt, president of the Hobart Institute in Troy, Ohio, says job
postings at the school have risen 40% in the last year. Companies are
increasingly offering sign-on bonuses of as much as $3,000 and are coming
from as far away as California and offering to pay relocation for students
willing to move, he says.
"It's like having gone through Harvard," he says. "The world is open for
them."
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Odermatt and others say they think the shortage of skilled manufacturing
workers is largely a function of perception.
"Culturally, we have browbeaten manufacturing to such an extent that we
don't have people interested," says John Sinn, interim director of the
Center for Applied Technology at Bowling Green State University.
Sinn and others say it is now up to people in manufacturing to change that
perception, particularly among younger people and their parents.
"Everyone wants their kids to be doctors, lawyers and dentists. . (But) all
of us can't be that," says Lloyd McCaffrey, director of manufacturing
technology at Williams International, a gas turbine manufacturer in Ogden,
Utah.
McCaffrey's company is investing $30 million in a program at nearby
Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College that will bring in students, some of
them in high school, for hands-on training in machining.
Representatives at Oklahoma State University-Okmulgee meet with students,
some of whom are in middle school, to teach them about manufacturing. The
university also recently started a program to help train disadvantaged
youths, some of whom are on probation, in manufacturing basics.
"What we're saying is, 'Here is a good option.' . This is a very good career
for a lot of people," says Roy Cail, executive director of the economic
development and training center at the university.
What concerns Cail and others is that as the workforce ages and the baby
boomers retire, the shortage of skilled manufacturing workers could grow
more acute.
In 2005, 43% of manufacturing workers were 45 years old or older. That's up
from 32% in 1995, according to a NAM analysis of Labor Department data.
"As the labor force ages, there really aren't young kids coming into the
trades," says Patrick Duffy, president of American Machine & Gear in
Portland, Ore. Duffy recently paid workers triple time to work on
Thanksgiving to get an order out.
Special skills in demand
At Electro Chemical Engineering and Manufacturing, workers create tanks that
are used to process, store or haul chemicals. The steel tanks are lined with
a special plastic that prevents erosion and sometimes contain reactors to
make the chemicals. Bunner's clients include major companies in the
pharmaceutical, chemical and high-tech industries, such as Dow Chemical,
Bayer, DuPont and General Electric.
Building the tanks takes a special skill in plastic welding. Even the
tiniest crack can mean a chemical leakage, a potentially dangerous and even
deadly situation.
But finding plastic welders, or even people interested in learning the
skill, has become next to impossible. Bunner has had three open slots for
welders since April. People have come in who can't do simple math - such as
calculating square footages, a key skill when 1 square foot of plastic
material goes for $250. He's also had people come in who have never used a
tape measure or read blueprints.
Not only has Bunner increased pay, he offers a 401(k) with a matching
program, health insurance and vacation time. But that still isn't working,
so he's had to "go outside the box" to recruit, as he puts it.
When a local company shut down, he set up a booth in its human resources
department. He hired two people that way. And he's working with the local
rescue mission and prison ministry to try to identify candidates.
Bunner is also trying to bring former employees back. An employee who
retired at 65 came back to work when he was 68. Soon, the company will be
mailing letters to 13 former employees, asking if they'd be interested in
working night or weekend hours.
"The fact that they worked for us and they are still alive, we are
contacting them," he says.
Bunner notes with a tinge of irony that his business is just down the street
from Allentown, Pa., the town Billy Joel made famous in 1982 with his song
Allentown. In it Joel described the area's declining manufacturing base,
particularly in the steel sector, saying it was "getting very hard to stay."
Electro Chemical used to serve the steel industry but has since adapted to
more high-tech uses in the evolving economy, like many other companies.
"We had to adapt or die," he says.
But unless he finds enough people who can, as he puts it, "work with your
hands and work with your head," companies like his are going to struggle to
get ahead. He's perplexed why more people aren't going into manufacturing.
"Manufacturing has an ugly aura," he says. But "you can't have everyone
sitting in a Dilbert cubicle. . Working with your hands, there's nothing
wrong with that."
--
"Your best, last and only line of defense-a cohort of Roman Heavy Infantry"
J. Andersen
> Preparation for another wave of Wetback illegal aliens flooding in?
No. If you read the article, the problems taht employers can't find any
American workers that understand the technology they need to do their
job. The days of a union guy with a GED getting a job are gone.
JS
few years back when the commercial diving companies
said they couldn't find many divers.
The association of diving contractors said we need
to look out of the country. There were plenty of divers,
the companies didn't want to pay a decent wage.
I'm in Florida, 5G welder and certified. Also have college, diving certs,
and other marketable skills, way more education than I
probably needed to acquire.
I've posted resumes, posted on newsgroups and have never
had anybody send me an email offering any job, period.
Finally got disgusted and joined a union, which I
should have done a long time ago.
Maybe it isn't the greatest, and I do have some bad
downtime. Lay offs are common and employers still play games with you.
But at least the wages are pretty decent when you are working.
"J. Andersen" <jan...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:sZmdh.26602$tb6....@news-wrt-01.rdc-nyc.rr.com...
J. Andersen
> I wonder really if the situation isn't like a
> few years back when the commercial diving companies
> said they couldn't find many divers.
> The association of diving contractors said we need
> to look out of the country. There were plenty of divers,
> the companies didn't want to pay a decent wage.
> I'm in Florida, 5G welder and certified. Also have college, diving certs,
> and other marketable skills, way more education than I
> probably needed to acquire.
> I've posted resumes, posted on newsgroups and have never
> had anybody send me an email offering any job, period.
> Finally got disgusted and joined a union, which I
> should have done a long time ago.
> Maybe it isn't the greatest, and I do have some bad
> downtime. Lay offs are common and employers still play games with you.
> But at least the wages are pretty decent when you are working.
>
I doubt it. There's been articles for years complaining about the poor
quality of education in the US. I know someone who is going to college
at a county community college and had some science and math textbooks. I
looked thru the textbooks and the material in them looked like very
basic concepts, some of which might have been late grammar school, but
none more than 1st or 2nd year high school years ago.