Help Wanted if You're Educated

[Jon Katz]

I made the short walk down the street yesterday to attend the 2008 Great Lakes Manufacturing Council Forum here in Cleveland near the IW home office. This year’s theme for the third-annual forum was collaboration, specifically how regional governments, educational institutions and businesses can work together to create positive manufacturing environments.

One of the issues addressed by speakers Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio and Cummins Inc. President and COO Joe Loughrey was how to tap the knowledge base of the region. One of the more enlightening comments by Loughrey was his assertion that there’s “too much talk about preserving jobs” that won’t make U.S. manufacturing competitive abroad.

Instead, Loughrey contends that the U.S. workforce is better served by investment in skilled, technically oriented positions that require post-high school education and/or training. Cummins, an IW 50 Best Manufacturer in 2008, has a total worldwide workforce of about 38,000. In the past few years the company’s U.S. workforce has grown by about 3,000 workers, Loughrey told the crowd of several hundred gathered at Cleveland’s downtown Marriott ballroom.

Loughrey attributes some of the growing employment numbers to international growth – he spoke ardently about the positive impact free trade has had on exports – and the company’s willingness to design products that meet environmental standards well before they go into effect while competitors are busy fighting the new rules.

At the same time the company is creating new jobs, it’s having a difficult time filling them, according to Loughrey. He says Cummins has been trying to fill this void by teaching advanced manufacturing skills to high school students in Indiana where the company’s main operations are located. The company has also partnered with Ivy Tech Community College to help develop skills for future workers.

This push for a skilled workforce isn’t coming from only large, multinational companies. Politicians also are driving change. Strickland mentioned a partnership between Ohio’s universities and the state’s Third Frontier Project, a 10-year $1.6 billion initiative designed to develop high-tech jobs, to attract students to advanced manufacturing.

These partnerships should serve as a wake-up call to all of those who long for the good ole days $25-an-hour assembly-line jobs that require no more than a high-school education, at most. As Loughrey said, it's time to stop clinging to the past.

[Abogle]

Boy they just never stop retreading the tired and thoroughly discreditted skilled worker shortage myth do they?

The final paragraph pretty much says it all - they want skilled and experienced mfg workers but these employers don't want to to pay for them.

If mfrs want more skilled workers they have to create a demand for them. Back when I was going to school tech school enrollment swelled - because there was real demand - the newspapers had pages and pages of ads for engineers and technicians. And the entry level pay reflected the demand. Today there are precious few opportunities for tech school grads. And can you blame the students for looking at other career choices? who wants to spend several years and go thousands in debt just to get some low wage low benefit job with long hours and little advancement potential that is likely to be shipped off to mexico, china or india?

One of the biggest fallacies of supply side thinking is that a supply of workers somehow magically creates demand for them. Of course logic tells us if you want to create a supply of tech workers you must first have demand for them. And employers must stop the madness of offshoring, downsizing and closing of plants if they want to create the conditions that an engineering career is once again a ticket to a long and productive career with advancement opportunities.

There doesn't seem to be any shortage of mercenary MBA's who only know how to downsize,close, chop budgets or outsource - they know little of how to create, build, and innovate like the business leaders of the past decades.

[strout0123]

This is a great deal for employers and a bad deal for employees. What happens to these highly skilled people when their particular skill is no longer required? They can expect long bouts of unemployment, when they labeled “over qualified”.

For a better solution, please see

http://spontaneousmaterials.com/Pape..._July_2008.pdf