Last year, The Manufacturing Institute
partnered with Deloitte to update its manufacturing skills gap report—the findings were
concerning, to say the least. The report revealed that the United States will
need to fill nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs over the next decade. A
staggering 2 million of those jobs are likely to go unfilled due to the skills
gap.
As Baby Boomers exit the workforce, the
need to attract younger workers to manufacturing has never been more important.
A crucial target: millennials, who the U.S. Census Bureau defines as people
between ages 18 and 34 by 2015. The pool of millennials is vast—this generation
has recently overtaken baby boomers as the largest with 75.4 million who fall
into this category. But while their numbers may be plenty, attracting them to
an industry suffering from an image problem has proven challenging.
Jennifer McNelly, executive director of
The Manufacturing Institute, says while Americans overwhelmingly believe
manufacturing is important, they don’t necessarily want their children to
pursue careers in the industry. According to the organization’s public
perception survey, 90 percent of Americans believe that manufacturing is very
important to economic prosperity, and 82 percent believe the U.S. should
further invest in manufacturing. But just one in three parents surveyed would
encourage their children to pursue a career in manufacturing. The reasons:
worry about job security and stability and the belief that the industry has
limited career prospects.
And it seems young people are listening to
their parents.
“When you actually segmented that out to
the Millennial Generation, interest in manufacturing jobs dropped to the rock
bottom,” said McNelly. “These are the workers we need today. They’re employed
today somewhere and moving towards management, if not already there. It remains
a persistent problem for us and something we really need new strategies to
change.”
The good news, McNelly says, is that the
manufacturing industry fully recognizes the problem and is working hard to
address it. Companies are investing in summer
camps for kids and programs like First Robotics, an international
youth organization that operates robotics and Lego competitions. Manufacturers
are also participating in National Manufacturing Day. In its third year, over
2,600 events attracted more than 400,000 students and parents to celebrate
manufacturing and promote it as a fulfilling and fruitful career option.
The Manufacturing Institute launched an
ambassador’s toolkit targeted to millennials during last year’s Manufacturing
Day. The toolkit provides manufacturers with a guide to create an ambassador
program that encourages employees to engage today’s workforce and to expose
more students to careers in manufacturing. And manufacturers are already taking
advantage.
Cooper Tire, a global replacement tire manufacturer
headquartered in Findlay, Ohio, participates in the Manufacturing
Institute’s Dream It. Do It. program, and has recruited some 40
employees to serve as ambassadors on “The Dream Team.” The company says their
ambassador program is already having an impact.
“We’re actually going back to focus on
eighth graders with most of our outreach efforts because eighth grade is one of
those ages where kids are making their first decisions, opinions, forming their
idea of what they might want to do for their careers, so it’s not at all too
early to start to talk with them about careers in manufacturing,” said Anne
Roman, vice president of communications and public affairs for Cooper Tire.
Roman says the makeup of the Dream Team is
purposefully diverse so young people can see that manufacturing isn’t just
about “making stuff,” but offers careers in a variety of fields.
“Students are intrigued when we tell them
how many people it actually takes to make a tire,” said Dream Team ambassador
and associate engineer for Cooper Tire Patrick Wallace. “From innovation in
tire design and materials to manufacturing, through sales and marketing —
taking a tire from concept to production and delivering it to the end user is a
complex process.”
The company also participates in Manufacturing Day, and Roman
says feedback from parents and students has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We received great surveys back. One
parent wrote to us and talked about the fact that her child has never expressed
that much excitement about anything that took place at school until he was
exposed to this. It’s fascinating.”
Jeannine
Kunz, vice president of Tooling U-SME, works to provide schools with the latest
curriculum that aligns to what the industry needs. Kunz says she sees more
schools coming to the table to work with local employers and ensure students
are equipped with the right skills to satisfy the needs of today’s
manufacturers.
“We’re getting into more and more projects
that have both parties at the table—not just us sitting at the table trying to
transfer that knowledge from industry to schools, but also having employers
sitting at the table, sitting on advisory committees, or schools going into the
companies themselves to see what’s happening.”
But Kunz says an area that needs more
attention is ensuring enough students are enrolled in programs geared toward
the manufacturing field.
“There are schools that have had to close
their programs,” said Kunz. “They have great programs. They have beautiful new
equipment for these kids to learn on, but not enough kids are enrolled.”
“There really needs to be a call to action
for the industry, parents, career counselors—there’s a lot of people who play a
role. It’s going to take a village to address it.
"We received great surveys back. One parent wrote to us
and talked about the fact that her child has never expressed that much
excitement about anything that took place at school until he was exposed to
this. It’s fascinating."
https://www.gray.com/insights/great-expectations-attracting-millennials-to-careers-in-manufacturing/
