Skilled labor demand going up, one segment averages six figures
American manufacturers are forecasting a rise in demand for specialized skills. Manufacturing organizations face challenges involving recruiting and maintaining good quality workers. America will need to keep these positions filled if it is to continue to effectively compete in the global economy. The desirable skillsets focus on technology. This opportunity opens the door for those with technology-based talents, mainly those in the younger generations.
From Fox News:
“You can’t meet demand if you don’t have enough people to make the products. We want to outcompete the rest of the world. We want America to be the number one manufacturer in the world,” National Association of Manufacturers President and CEO Jay Timmons said. “We’ve got to make sure folks understand what exciting careers are available in manufacturing.”
There are more than 600,000 openings for manufacturing jobs in the U.S., according to May Labor Department data.
“That number is going to rise to about 2.1 million vacancies or open jobs by the year 2030 if we don’t take a different path,” Timmons warned.
Around 1.7 million employees were laid off, quit or left manufacturing jobs in March and April 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic first took hold. Many of those workers were eventually hired back along with additional people to fill those roles. The number of those working in the manufacturing sector has since surpassed pre-pandemic levels, with around 200,000 additional workers now employed than in January 2020.
“We pay more than any other sector of the economy. The average salary is six digits,” Timmons said. “If you want to be able to provide for your family in the long term, manufacturing is certainly a key way of life.”
Despite the increase in workers, job openings have surged. In January 2020, there were 412,000 available manufacturing jobs. In April 2022, there were over a million. Timmons said workers are needed in every area of the manufacturing sector.
Fox News has the balance of the story here. Meanwhile, there is another work-related trend that appeals to a segment of the younger folks, labeled the “Lazy Girl Jobs.”
Category: Society
I thought the interviewer was pulling my leg back in ’99 when part of the interview process was matching the tool with the hardware it was to be used for. Nope, it was for reelz. Dood said there was a better than 50% failure rate on that test back then. The requirement to pass that test was dropped around ’10 and a block of instruction was added to the training courses to teach what tool is used on whatever hardware. From what I understand it’s just gotten worse.
The lack of skilz may be one reason why there is a dearth of quality products manufactured today.
You know the Democrats are full of shit when they say they want to bring manufacturing back the US while at the same time dumbing down the schools. They don’t teach the 3R’s anymore. They’re just indoctrination factories where you’re taught you’re either a victim or an oppressor based on birth. These are the signs of The End Times…
Manufacturers should try to get the youth of America early while they are in Junior High/Middle School and establish a vocational program. They can offer to pull them from subpar or failing school systems and ensure they are taught the proper language and math skills required for the manufacturing base. After graduation they could offer them further training in manufacturing jobs and just sign a contract to work for a minimum time to reoup training costs.
Great training, great paying jobs and no debt at the end of the contract. After the contract is done they can offer further incentives to stay with the company such as bonuses and help with buying a home. Sort of a civillian version of the GI bill.
Schools getting rid of vocational programs was a bad idea. Guidance counselors pushing college on everyone was a worse idea. I got started at an entry level assembly job back in ‘95 making a little over $8 an hour and I worked my way up to where I’m in sales making six figures working from home when I’m not on customer sites. But, I still remember where I came from and know my way around a tool box which means if I get tired of being a salesman, I can go back to being a field engineer and make the same money. Thing is, a lot of these manufacturing jobs these days are light manufacturing and if you’re doing the hot, dirty, or heavy work like steel fabrication or welding, you get paid even more. Same with the skilled trades. You can make a great living that way.
Sounds like an updated better version of the apprentice and guild system. Which would work for me to get workers into the STEM manufacturing and repair jobs.
Get us out of this “service industry” (hotel, sales…).
Manufacturing will now require intelligence, education and a rewarding career path that offers advancement if we want to have a robust capacity for it. Gone are the days of (as Leftists like) centralized rote work done by expendible labor. All folk involved in making stuff are “paid to think” and produce results now.
Not just in manufacturing, learning a Trade Skill brings in good money these days, a Journeyman’s Card is a ticket to a nice income, far more than any Degree from someplace like UC Berzerkely!
My son got his A&P license for fixed wing aircraft. He went from working at DQ part time while in trade school to 6 figure income in less than 5 years.
He got an associates degree in his field, and even he says more people need trade school. He just turned 26 years old, and apparently in that field, you can just about write your own ticket on pay and benefits. He tells us that field is way undermanned.
Just insane amounts of money to be made.
I taught my children that college for the sake of college was a scam, the best way to become financially secure was to create a skillset and then sharpen it by using it. I will never become wealthy as a diesel mechanic, but I also will always have a job, and they pay for my experience as much as my labor. I didn’t lose any days during the kung flu lockdowns because I qualified as an essential worker supporting the infrastructure. The people who list the most in the last economic downturn were the office/admin type workers. Until they ban diesel fuel I will be in demand, nobody wants to get dirty anymore.
I have a Masters Degree in Gender Studies from Berkeley. Was wondering what good career field would be to go into.
LOL! You made my day 5JC!
With that degree you can explain that because you’re a man(I say that with some doubt) and call yourself a woman you’re still a man. A dumbass but still a man.
If the “lady” has an apple, the “lady” has a stem.
That is, unless he is completely committed, the apple remains.
Male pattern baldness and a 5 o’clock shadow does not make for an attractive woman.
But he dang sure can talk football with you better than your wife.
Right…Odie? 😜
This message brought to you by the Pattaya Board of Tourism and the US Navy. Enjoy your stay!
Vice President of recruiting for Brucies Bath House International. 🙄
Economics or Dept. of Transportation… seems that how it’s going lately.
Consider hair styling?
Check with All-Points Logistics….
As MustangCPT, and STSC(SW/SS) pointed out above, the removal of vocational training in junior and senior high schools crippled the job markets and left potentially good techs at loose ends. Many just ended up in college for whatever they thought best. In my school days, we had a woodshop, which produced carpenters and cabinet makers, auto mechanics, which is a great career, mechanical drafting, which later went into CAD, and even plumbing or electrical basics courses. All these were good, solid jobs that paid well and now pay higher. We also had a vocational program that allowed a student a half day off, three days a week to apprentice with a trade. Those days are LONG gone and we are writing about the results here.
From where I sit, the problem is at least two-pronged:
I see a dramatic difference between high-school/college-aged youth from homeschool and/or country backgrounds, and public school/big town backgrounds.
Homeschooled and country-raised kids have learned how to work and work well.
The others haven’t been taught how, and worse most of them have “helicopter” parents and grandparents who coddle them sickeningly.
They don’t even know how to start working, or that they need to learn.
Right on Graybeard ! My father taught me how to work in the slaughterhouse . One thing I learned was I could do it but did not want to make it my career. I became a carpenter and worked in that trade till Pres. Carter tanked the economy. I then became a truck driver and still work part time at that even though I retired many years ago. I have had co workers ask me why I work so hard. My reply is that is how my father taught me to work.
Gotta get the work done. College/suburbanite people will “mentor” you to not work so hard because it’s “poh-tenshul” if you have a glad hand and folk have to chase you down to do the bare minimum instead.
My grandson in Louisiana is following up in his Dad’s footsteps by going into being a machinist. Even though that state is on the low side of the pay scale he was making $18 an hour as an apprentice. Now he is getting ready to get married, has 3 acres of land and is building his first house. I may have married into the family but I love the grandkids as if they were blood. They make me proud.
Locally here an apprentice machinist will make 16 to $20 an hour as soon as they make machinist one they’re starting about $21 an hour and a machinist that’s II Is about 25 to $30 an hour. After that it goes into certs. A set up operator or a T&D maker start on average about $70k and can go up quite a bit from there depending on their experience and if they have a clearance. With a high clearance usually it’s going to start about 90k. So a hard worker, out of high school, could be making 90k by the time they’re 30.
I’m not sure what a hotstick lineman is making these days, but they’re making a killing on overtime right now in Tucson. Watch out TEP customers, they gotta make that up somewhere!
Really nice live version with Glenn playing in the studio with the Stone Temple Pilots: https://youtu.be/HDPuK_tqG-Y
Looks like the Marines are going to clear mission and then some, this year. I wonder why the other services can’t do that?