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Two takeaways from this article:
1) Unskilled workers are being left behind even in manufacturing.
2) More efficient plants continue to be a large reason why there are less manufacturing jobs (underlined area of article).
U.S. News: Manufacturers Search for Workers
The Wall Street Journal
By Anna Louie Sussman
2 September 2016,
Amid growing anxiety about the disappearance of factory jobs, thousands of them are going unfilled across the U.S.
The number of open manufacturing jobs has risen since 2009 and this year stands at the highest level in 15 years, according to Labor Department data.
Factory work has evolved over the past 15 years or so as companies have invested in advanced machinery requiring new sets of skills. Many workers laid off in recent decades -- as technology, globalization and recession wiped out lower-skilled roles -- don't have the skills to do today's jobs. The mismatch is a growing problem for the economy, stymieing businesses' ability to boost production and weighing on growth, executives say.
Gary Miller has observed manufacturing's evolution firsthand. When he started at Ohio-based Kyocera SGS Precision Tools Inc. in 1989, it employed 550 production employees. Despite shedding half its workers, it now produces twice as much, thanks to higher-skilled employees and equipment like computer-controlled machine tools, which cost up to $500,000 each.
Mr. Miller, KSPT's director of training, struggles to find technicians with the electrical and mechanical skills needed to maintain complex machines. One maintenance role went unfilled for over a year as he sought someone with an associate's or bachelor's degree, ideally in manufacturing engineering. "Back 15 years or so, the machines weren't as sophisticated as they are now," he said.
His problems are mirrored across the country. Openings for manufacturing jobs this year have averaged 353,000 a month, up from 311,000 in 2015 and 122,000 in 2009.
As manufacturing has become more technology-driven, its share of managers and professionals has risen, the Labor Department says. In 2000, 53% of manufacturing workers had no education past high school. By 2015, that share had fallen 9 percentage points, while the share with college or graduate degrees increased 8 points.
Research-intensive sectors like pharmaceutical or aerospace manufacturing often seek candidates with science and engineering degrees. Other hard-to-fill roles are middle-skill positions, like maintenance technician, that require education beyond high school.
The "upskilling" in manufacturing mirrors a broader bias in the economy toward more educated workers. In 2016, college-educated workers for the first time outnumbered workers with a high-school diploma or less, a study by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce found.
Companies say education and training haven't evolved with industry needs. As manufacturing lost jobs to technology and outsourcing, young people pursued college degrees or jobs in the services sector. Colleges and high schools reduced their focus on technical education.
Eight in 10 manufacturing executives said the growing skills gap will affect their ability to keep up with customer demand, according to a 2015 survey by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute, an industry-backed nonprofit. It takes an average of 94 days to recruit for highly skilled roles such as scientist or engineer, and 70 days for skilled production workers, they found.
That is despite a large pool of available labor. Between June 2015 and June 2016, there was an average of two unemployed manufacturing workers for each open job.
The fate of the 1,400 workers set to lose their jobs at Carrier Corp.'s plant in Indiana illustrates the shift. After the manufacturer of gas furnaces and fan coils said it would move jobs to Mexico, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made the plant a talking point, promising to curb future outsourcing.
Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999 in Indianapolis, said Boeing Co. in Seattle, hungry for skilled tradespeople like tool and die makers and electricians, was offering $35 an hour plus help with relocation costs. But he estimates there are 60 Carrier employees who would be eligible. Most of the others are assembly-line workers with little training beyond high school.
With workers, and the institutions that educate them, slow to adapt, executives like Mike Magee, president of Akron Tool & Die Co. in Ohio, spend months searching for candidates. He has had three or four machinist jobs open since the beginning of the year, positions that command $23 to $25 an hour for an experienced candidate.
Some say there is a simple solution: pay more.
"No one says, 'We can't find the workers we need even though we raised wages significantly,'" said Brad Markell, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council. "If there's a scarcity of something, you raise wages."
But companies say it isn't that simple. Mr. Magee said he would lose a bidding war to bigger firms in his area, and it won't solve the problem of too few skilled workers.
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