RPT-FEATURE-So many US manufacturing jobs,so few skilled workers
* Shortfall in computer, math and science training* Siemens has more than 3,000 jobs open* Study sees a shortage of up 1.5 mln workers in 2020By Lucia MutikaniWASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturers are
failing to fill thousands of vacant jobs, surprising when 14
million people are searching for work.Technology giant Siemens Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany’s
Siemens AG , has over 3,000 jobs open all over the
country. More than half require science, technology,
engineering and math-related skills.Other companies report job vacancies that range from six
to 200, with some positions open for at least nine months.Manufacturing is hurt by a dearth of skilled workers.”What we have been saying for quite a while is that even
though there is a high unemployment rate, it’s very difficult
to find skilled people,” said Jeff Owens, president of ATS, a
manufacturing consulting services company.A survey by ManpowerGroup found that a record 52 percent of
U.S. employers have difficulty filling critical positions
within their organizations — up from 14 percent in 2010.Owens said his company, which counts manufacturing
behemoths Caterpillar and Motorola among its clients,
has at any given time about 200 open positions .”We are pro-actively working to fill them. It can take 90
to a hundred days, probably, to fill them,” he told Reuters.
“We are creating jobs. We just don’t necessarily have the
right people to fill them.”On average, companies usually take seven weeks to fill job
openings.MISMATCH OF SKILLS AND JOBSMost of the jobs hard to fill are for skilled trades,
Internet technology, engineers, sales representatives and
machine operators.Yet American colleges are producing fewer math and science
graduates as students favor social sciences, whose workload is
perceived to be manageable, leading to a skills mismatch.Math, engineering, technology and computer science
students accounted for about 11.1 percent of college graduates
in 1980, according to government data. That share dropped to
about 8.9 percent in 2009.An aging population of skilled workers is adding to the
problem. As the baby boomers retire, there are fewer skilled
workers available to replace them.”Many of the younger kids that are coming out of college
have been discouraged to go into manufacturing,” said Dennis
Bray, president and CEO of Contour Precision Group.”A lot of the college graduates have chosen a curriculum
and degree that does not give them the necessary science and
math skills to be of immediate benefit to companies such as
ours.”Contour Precision, based in Clover, South Carolina, does
contract work for the energy and aerospace industries. It is
currently looking for six technicians. It has had positions
open since last year.Unemployment in manufacturing is at 8.4 percent, below the
overall rate of 9.1 percent. According to the Labor
Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey,
there were 240,000 open jobs in manufacturing in August up
38.7 percent from a year ago.The problem is sufficiently serious that businesses are
pushing Congress to address the issue of visas and help them
hire more high-skilled foreigners.STRUCTURAL UNEMPLOYMENT?These companies’ inability to fill open jobs suggests that
part of the unemployment problem confronting the nation could
be more of a structural nature rather than a downturn in the
business cycle.Two years after the end of the worst recession since the
Great Depression of the 1930s, about 14 million Americans are
still unemployed.In September, nearly 45 percent of them had been out of
work for six months or more. The longer people are out of the
workforce, the more dated their skills become, making it even
harder to reintegrate them into the labor market.The types of jobs available are also changing.Medium-skilled repetitive tasks that can be computerized
continue to disappear. First, it was from from the factory
floor, but it also affects the back office, where processing
and support jobs are declining.The strongest job growth is concentrated in healthcare and
the scientific, technical and computer fields, which usually
require at least a post-secondary education.”The old jobs are not coming back. We need to invest in
education and training to get people prepared to fill these
high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the future,” said Eric
Spiegel, president and CEO of Siemens Corp.Siemens is recruiting in states where unemployment is
high. Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, New
Jersey, California, Illinois, Georgia and New York have
jobless rates that range from 8 percent to 12.1 percent.According to the Conference Board, workers with computer
and math or science skills have a far better chance of getting
a job, with one worker applying for every three of these types
of jobs advertised. In contrast, there are roughly three
people for every advertised job in sales.PLENTY OF WELL-PAYING JOBSFew of the thousands of jobs open in the manufacturing
sector are low-wage positions.Workers at the very low levels can earn as much as $30 an
hour, with annual salaries for engineers ranging from $75,000
to $100,000. At Siemens, the average potential salary offered
for its open positions is $89,000 a year.Manufacturing lost its appeal during the 1990s when
companies started moving production to Asian countries like
China, in search of cheap labor. But rising wages in China are
forcing some companies to bring production back home.Although manufacturing accounts for about 12 percent of
U.S. gross domestic product and about 10 percent of total
non-farm employment, it has been the main pillar of support
for the economy and one of the highest-paying sectors.The shortage of skilled workers is also compounded by the
depressed housing market, which is making it tough for
Americans to relocate to where the jobs are.The housing market crash has left many people with home
loans owing financial institutions more than what their houses
are worth, making it difficult for them to sell.BRING IN THE ARMYIn hopes of addressing the skills gap, companies such as
Siemens and ATS are turning to the military, targeting
veterans. Siemens is embarking on apprenticeship programs,
while ATS is running training programs for young people.”We have found that veterans have extensive technical
training and experience that they gain through military
service, and these skills are extremely valuable to us and
match up well with many of our over 3,000 open positions,”
Spiegel said.Siemens has hired 450 military veterans so far this year.Others are teaming up with professional bodies like the
Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), which has developed
online courses to support its members.”We are not filling the pipeline with enough candidates
for these positions. This problem has been ongoing for the
last three or four years,” said Mark Tomlinson, CEO of the
Society of Manufacturing Engineers.But the long-term solution lies in revamping the nation’s
education system to meet the current challenges and invest
more in vocational training, industry leaders say.”Often people say we do have vocational training, but it’s
geared towards yesterday’s technology and yesterday’s job
opportunities,” said ATS’s Owens. “I am not sure the educators
are on the mark with what exactly needs to be taught for
today’s environment.”
