Demand is growing for blue-collar workers, but the good jobs require education and skills that few high school graduates can offer, writes Joel Kotkin in City Journal. As baby-boom workers retire, employers worry about finding new workers who can run million-dollar machinery.
Even as overall manufacturing employment has dropped, employment in high-skill manufacturing professions has soared 37 percent since the early 1980s, according to a New York Federal Reserve study. These jobs can pay handsomely. An experienced machinist at Ariel Corporation (in Ohio) earns over $75,000, a very good wage in an area where you can buy a nice single-family house for less than $150,000.
A big reason for the demand is changes on the factory floor. At Ariel, (CEO Karen) Wright points out, the operator of a modern CNC (computer numerical control) machine, which programs repetitive tasks such as drilling, is running equipment that can cost over $5 million. A new hire in this position must have knowledge of programming, metallurgy, cutting-tool technology, geometry, drafting, and engineering. Today’s factory worker is less Joe Six-Pack and more Renaissance man.
Even the auto industry, which laid off 230,000 workers during the recession, will be trying — and struggling — to find skilled workers, predicts David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. The industry will need more than 100,000 new workers by 2013, Cole says and “will start running out of people with the proper skills as early as next year.”
A 2005 study by Deloitte Consulting found that 80 percent of manufacturers expected a shortage of skilled production workers, more than twice the percentage that expected a lack of scientists and engineers and five times the percentage that expected a lack of managerial and administration workers.
Vocational education has declined as nearly all counselors — and parents — tell high school students to aim for a bachelor’s degree, employers complain. “Kids . . . don’t realize a pipe fitter makes three times as much as a social worker,” says Jeff Kirk, manager of human relations at Kaiser Aluminum’s plant in Heath, Ohio.
Some high schools are now working with industry to train students for high-wage industrial jobs, writes Kotkin, citing Houston’s Academy for Petroleum Exploration and Production Technology.
Technical and community colleges also are designing programs for adults who need high-value job skills in a hurry.
. . . Central Ohio Technical College, has recently expanded by 70 welding students and 50 aspiring machinists per year. Many of the college’s certificate programs are designed and partly funded by companies, which figure that they’re making a wise investment.
There are many examples. I wasn’t surprised to see two technical colleges — in Kentucky and South Dakota — were runners-up for the Aspen Prize this year.
