We Must Do More to Promote Manufacturing as a Rewarding Career Path. Here's How

Instead of wringing our hands about how hard it is to fill manufacturing jobs, let’s attack the problem with the same vigor that we would major customer or cost issues in the shop.

Thanks to Steve Minter for his recent insightful and upbeat article (Will Millennials Change Manufacturing?) on the potential impact of millennials on manufacturing. These are wonderful testimonials to the challenging and rewarding careers available now! That’s fantastic news, especially for engineering and other technical degreed students.

The bad news is, according to various estimates, there are still about 6 million manufacturing jobs going unfilled. (See Millions of Manufacturing Jobs Could Go Unfilledand There Have Never Been This Many Job Openings in America)

In my opinion, there are at least two primary reasons for these unfilled positions: 1) applicants don’t have the skills necessary to do the jobs; and 2) potential applicants have a lack of interest in manufacturing largely due to old and outdated paradigms such as factories are unsafe, dirty work places; shift work; and a “manufacturing isn’t cool” image.

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