Critical Workforce Issues Face Nation, Our Industry

While agriculture continues to lag behind the rest of the economy, a strong jobs report released last week by the U.S. Department of Labor shows manufacturing added 36,000 jobs in June. Durable goods manufacturing accounted for nearly all of the increase, including job gains in fabricated metal products, computer and electronic products, and primary metals. Over the past year, manufacturing has added 285,000 jobs.

This good news leads to questions over how to fill current openings and how to prepare for what some analysts suggest will be an economically crippling shortage of skilled labor as baby boomers exit the workforce and the nation experiences historically low unemployment. (This is not just a shortage of skilled labor but a shortage of labor, period.)

This week, Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and trusted aid, went to Syracuse, N.Y., to celebrate an innovative Syracuse city school program that prepares students for jobs in manufacturing and engineering. During her visit to the Institute of Technology at Central High School, Trump said the program, known as P-Tech, is what the nation needs to fill this shortage of skilled workers.

The P-Tech program combines classes at the high school and community college with career training. Students study electrical and mechanical technology and gain real-world work experience through internships and part-time employment.

The worker shortage has states battling each other as they look to prepare the workforce needed to attract new manufacturers. Vermont is offering $10,000 grants to people willing to move to the state and work remotely in their current job. Indiana has set up a web portal to attract veterans as they leave the military. In North Platte, Neb., the local Chamber of Commerce is offering to match employers’ signing bonuses up to $5,000.

In Wisconsin, one news outlet characterized the situation as bordering on desperate. The state’s unemployment rate recently hit a new record low of 2.8 percent. That is among the lowest rates in the nation, and it comes before hiring begins at the giant Foxconn plant, now under construction near Racine. The Taiwanese manufacturer has promised to hire as many as 13,000 people to build giant video displays in exchange for $4.5 billion in state and local incentives. 

But where will those workers come from, and what will small local manufacturers do to retain their workforce and compete with Foxconn—and the many comparable companies—in the employment marketplace?

This is just one of the challenges we will explore during our Marketing & Distribution Convention this fall in Minneapolis.
We encourage members to bring their stories on workforce development programs that have worked in their communities and those that have not. And, we’ll hear from executives at Vermeer Corp. who bring standout knowledge on strategies for attracting and retaining a workforce.

Stay tuned for more information on this important topic. We will tell you more not only about the session at the fall convention but also about two scholarship programs the Association will support over the next year. Both scholarships focus on meeting the workforce needs of our member companies.