Factory CEOs: Jobs Exist, Skilled Applicants in Short Supply

President Trump invited two dozen chief executives of manufacturing companies to the White House earlier this month and spoke of his commitment to restoring factory jobs lost to foreign competition.

Yet some of the CEOs suggested that there were still plenty of openings for U.S. factory jobs but too few qualified people to fill them. They urged the White House to support vocational training for the high-tech skills that today’s manufacturers increasingly require—a topic Trump has seldom addressed.

The discussion of job training and worker skills is a relatively new one for Trump, who campaigned for the White House on promises to restore manufacturing jobs that he said had been lost over flawed trade deals and unfair competition from countries like Mexico and China.

Again and again, Trump brought up that theme in his meeting with the CEOs.

“Everything is going to be based on bringing our jobs back,” Trump said. “The good jobs, the real jobs. They’ve left.”

White House officials said Trump heard the executives’ concerns about a shortage of qualified workers. The officials said Trump supports efforts to increase training for factory jobs, but they didn’t provide details. “We were challenged by the president to come up with a program to make sure the American worker is trained for the manufacturing jobs of tomorrow,” said White House official Reed Cordish after the meetings.

One executive said in discussions with White House officials that his company has 50 participants in a factory apprenticeship program but could take 500 if enough were qualified. But he said that in his experience, most students coming out of high school lack the math and English skills to absorb technical manuals.

Government figures show there are 324,000 open factory jobs nationwide—triple the number in 2009, during the depths of the recession.

Source: Los Angeles Times