There is a lot happening in Rhode Island to help spread the word to high school students about MFG Day and the great careers available in our advanced manufacturing precision machining shops.
We’ll be following up with more from Rhode Island in our next post!
Tag: Careers
We were pleased to see the infographic approach used by Dr. Lisa Lang to summarize the career opportunities in Precision Machining.
She has posted it on her Velocity Scheduling Blog here
Here is what Dr. Lang had to say about her interest in Careers in our field:
“Our interest in this area is because we work with custom job shops and machine shops. Our Velocity Scheduling System helps these shops get more done with the SAME people and resources. It’s NOT software, but a manual visual scheduling system for job shop scheduling and machine shop scheduling.
“The shops we work with increase their productivity WITHOUT adding people or machines. The result is that their customers notice the improvement in lead-time and on-time delivery and give them more business. Sometimes this additional business is so substantial that they finally do need to add people. But that’s okay at this point because profits and cash flow have improved. The problem is that it can be a real struggle to find qualified employees.
“There has been a lot in the news lately about the shortage of skilled manufacturing labor while at the same time, there is a push to reshore manufacturing back to the U.S.
“The dilemma is clear and we need more kids going into manufacturing.
Dr. Lang has posted the infographic here
U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration just released a new report that describes why manufacturing jobs are good jobs using compelling facts and data from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators report.
New hires in the manufacturing sector fare better than new hires in other industries.
- New hires in manufacturing enjoy an earnings premium relative to other new hires. This premium peaked during the recession but has returned to near its pre-recession average. At the end of 2011, the manufacturing earnings premium for new hires stood at about 38 percent.
- At the end of 2011, the ratio of new hire earnings to incumbent earnings was about 8 percentage points higher in manufacturing than in other industries.
- Over time, the earnings of new hires relative to incumbents have been consistently higher in manufacturing. From 2000 to 2011, the earnings of new hires were about 70 percent of incumbents’ earnings in manufacturing, compared to an average of 60 percent in other industries.
- Since the recession began, real average earnings for new hires in manufacturing grew 3.5 percent, while earnings of incumbents in manufacturing grew about 2.4 percent. Over the same time, real earnings for hires in other industries were flat, and earnings for incumbents in other industries declined.
We have reported before about the difficulties of recent college grads to find meaningful employment, and that trend is widely reported in the press.
So imagine our delight to see authoritative statistics from the Dept. Of Commerce, with data from the Quarterly Workforce Indicators report, cross checked and validated against the Current Population Survey, that confirm that manufacturing new hires consistently earn a premium over others in other industries!
How big a deal is the earnings premium?
Figure 1 illustrates the earnings premium, that is, the average percentage earnings gap enjoyed by new hires in manufacturing compared to new hires in other industries. Prior to the recession, earnings of new hires in manufacturing were about 37 percent higher than new hire earnings in other industries. The premium for new hires in manufacturing began to increase in 2008, peaking at just over 50 percent in 2010. The premium has declined during the recovery but remains above its pre-recession level.
Looking for a career? Looking for Earnings?
The opportunities in manufacturing are convincing.
About a career in Precision Machining.
Earnings of New Hires In Manufacturing report from Dept. of Commerce