The blue bar segments in the following graph shows us that as the baby boomer cohort leave the workforce, there are currently not enough under 25 and 25- 34 year olds to make up for their loss. This means that not only will productivity increases have to continue, but also that we need to really make an effort to bring 34 and under people into our skilled workforce in manufacturing. This will certainly be a challenge for employers, and if nothing is done, will mean a new management version of the No Job Blues– “the no skilled worker blues” – for our shops as we try to find candidates for open positions left by the departing boomers.
If you are a savvy shop, you are working on this issue today- if the average age of our manufacturing workers is 50, that means over half of our workforce are within a few short years of retirement.
What’s your plan for workforce and skill development in your shop, city, region and state?
LCCC Fab Lab- Year of the Dragon was a great CAM project for their students.
From my encounters in retail with recent graduates, just making change without a cash register is a difficult task.
Let alone using the Pythagorean Theorem to control geometry, runout, and cosine error.
Four year college graduates lack the skills we need in our shops more often than not.
Nothing wrong with being able to quote Yeats, but does it pay as much as being able to set up and operate this equipment?
Yet we have openings for people with skills.
Last night, 26 Northern Ohio Chapter members of the PMPA attended an open house of the advanced manufacturing labs at Lorain County Community College:
CAD Lab
Fab Lab
CNC Machining Lab
Welding Lab
Computer Integrated Manfacturing Lab
Manual Machining Lab
Our attendees were impressed with the equipment; they were quite impressed by the instructors.
They were delighted to sense the confidence, understanding, and capability shown by the students at work in the labs.
We may not know where the entire skilled workforce for our precision industry will come from, but we know some local programs where we can find some skilled technicians.
