Would your undergrad or MBA students be interested in a manufacturing job if they knew it paid $50,000-$80,000 a year? Maybe not, but such jobs are available and often unfilled. The Wall Street Journal (May 6,2011) reports that manufacturers , despite 9% unemployment rates, are struggling to find skilled workers. Large and small manufacturers of everything from machine tools to chemicals are scouring for potential hires and poaching each other’s employees. Some are even hiring former prisoners who learned machinists skills behind bars.
Its a confluence of 3 trends, says the Journal. First, after falling for a decade, manufacturing jobs are now growing, albeit modestly. Second, baby-boomer retirements are sapping the most experienced workers (1/4 of all factory workers are 55 or older). Third, the US educational system isn’t turning out enough people with the math and science skills needed to deal with sophisticated computer-controlled factory equipment.
“We get people coming in here all the time who say ‘I can weld’. Well, my grandmother could weld”, says the Lehigh Heavy
Forge Corp HR director in Bethlehem, PA. We need “people who understand the intricacies of $1 million lathes”. Likewise, technicians at Houston’s Bayer AG’s plant need math/science skills for such tasks as calculating the rate at which dyes need to be added for special batches of plastics. After screening, Bayer finds that few people are qualified. Some jobs at Bayer have been open 6-9 months, laments the CEO.
Manufacturers say it’s the educational system. Only about 5% of bachelors degrees in the US are in engineering, compared to 20% in Asia. In the most recent comparison of math and science test scores of 15-year olds by the OECD, American students trailed far behind those in China, Japan,South Korea, Canada, and Germany.
Discussion questions:
1. Do your students have any interest in high paid jobs running sophisticated equipment?
2. What system does Germany use (see Ch.1) that works better to fill this demand?
There is likely still a gap between the positions that run sophisticated, expensive equipment and the students (few as they may be) that graduate with Engineering degrees.
Where I’m from, student who enroll in Engineering programs are highly regarded, with the same type of prestige that is extended to those who are pursuing careers in medicine and law. But do we hold the profession of running manufacturing equipment in the same light as say a doctor. I don’t think so.
Maybe it’s compensation, maybe it’s more cultural but to get more highly skilled professionals to take opportunities in the manufacturing field, I think those positions need to step up and get in line with the expectations of those talented resources.