North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
North America's Largest Metal Forming, Fabricating, Welding and Finishing Event
The Future of Manufacturing Depends on Skilled Trade
By Joe Mazzeo at Integrated Lean and Quality Solutions, LLC on on
The State of Manufacturing and the Skilled Trades Shortage
The U.S. economy continues to grow, and the manufacturing sector also continues to see growth, creating additional jobs for engineering, technical, floor operators and skilled trades personnel. An existing crisis, which is a shortage of skilled workers available to fill these open positions is getting worse. Based on a recent, joint study conducted by Deloite and The Manufacturing Institute, there is a significant manufacturing skills job gap of 48,000 positions which continue to be unfilled. The forecasted gap of open skilled positions through 2028 is that 2.4 million jobs will go unfilled.
Some recent statistics show that there are 12.3 million workers currently in manufacturing, which is about 9% of the total U.S. workforce. Within the general working population of the U.S., 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring on a daily basis, and this rate of retirement will continue through 2037. Within these statistics it also shows that 75 percent of skilled trades personnel are over the age of 45, and 75 percent of these tradesmen will retire within the next 5 – 7 years.
How did the United States manufacturing sector arrive at this precipitous position? A combination of factors has contributed to this condition. Beginning in the mid to late 1970’s, when the country began to see a significant decline in manufacturing, high school education began to shift its focus from providing dual post high school education paths for both skilled trades and college to one mainly focused on preparing students for college education. As a result, most middle schools and high schools dropped shop classes, and “College for All” was promoted by administrators, teachers and guidance counselors as the only means to achieve financial and economic success. While some education systems have begun to realize that there is a need to once again prepare students for vocational and skilled trades careers and are modifying their curriculums, most high schools still continue with this outdated and incorrect model that all students strive to achieve a university degree.
In addition, while 9 out of 10 Americans believe manufacturing is critical to the U.S. economy, only 1 in 3 would encourage children to enter the manufacturing field. This is dueto long-standing misconceptions that manufacturing is perceived as unsafe, dirty and the jobs are considered low tech and dead end positions.
Today’s manufacturing environments are safe, clean and bright. They encompass high levels of technology and engineering and provide for employees the opportunity to have thriving careers.
Millennials and the Future of Manufacturing and Skilled Trades
With this background, where will the people come from to fill all of these open positions?
Millennials, born between 1981 – 2000, and soon Generation Z, born beginning in 2001, are the population groups available to fill current and future manufacturing positions. Given By the year 2025, 3 out of 4 workers will be from the Millennial generation.
A Strategy for Success
The focus of my talk,The Future of Manufacturing Depends on Skilled Trades – How to Attract and Retain Future Talent, at FABTECH 2019, will focus on how to engage Millennials and future generations of employees to fill these important, skilled trades open positions. Topics will include:
– Understanding Millennials and leveraging their strengths for manufacturing positions– Creating a value proposition of skilled trades vs. college education– How to changing the perceptions of manufacturing– Recruiting and hiring plan to attract Millennials– Creating the long-term future employee feeder pool
I look forward to seeing you at FABTECH 2019.
Hear more from Joe at his other FABTECH presentation “Learning Leaders Drive Successful Organizations”.
Register to attend FABTECH now!
FABTECH 2024
About the Expo
North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
