I run a mid-sized injection molding company in Wisconsin (Kaysun Corporation), and find this predicament at Moeller Manufactuirng disturbing, given the high unemployment situation that has impacted Michigan over the past couple of years, an economy severely impacted by the declining auto industry, which has always been Michigan’s bread and butter with respect to job creation and economic growth. The fact of the matter is that skilled employees, such as precision CNC machinists, are hard to come by, even though 10% of Americans are unemployed. The answer to this issue is to train and educate the unskilled workforce that exists in the United States -- and issues like what’s going on in Wixom will go away. At Kaysun, we strongly encourage education and support our employees in further education and do everything we can to emphasize the need to attain new skills to keep up with the fast pace of change within advanced manufacturing technologies. Gone are the days where a strong back will get the job done. Knowledge workers are no longer in the office. Some of the best minds are found on the production floor.
Your explanation of one possible reason for the lack of candidates helps. I had been thinking, at least in part, that precision CNC machinists should be in oversupply rather than undersupply, given all of the manufacturing company closings in Michigan and elsewhere in the Midwest over the past few years. But it sounds like that's not necessarily true.
I think that Ben is right - there are some skill positions that while maybe not in shortage mode are in equilibrium. Maybe the $/hr is not enough to entice someone to move from 100+ miles away for the new job?
The cynical streak within me wonders if they are not seeing a situation similar to what we have seen locally. Workers continue to collect never ending unemployment that they supplement with part time "cash" jobs. The net result is they make almost as much and sometimes more than they can make taking a real job - so why work? Maybe if unemployment benefits had and end in sight there would be a lot of interest in the $14-$20 range??
Instead of speculating about the answer, I wonder if anyone is in a position to collect some data to see what is really happening? For example:
Are there qualified people available in the area?
What are they usually paid?
And there are probably other salient questions.
Clearly there is something amiss when a job search fails. But without data, it is all conjecture. People who act on conjecture are more likely to make a mistake than people who act on data.
The writer of the article said she is following up on the story next week, so we will learn if there is any change in the status. She seemed to think (in a comment below the story) that maybe there was simply some disconnect in the hiring process.
There is a wealth of conjecture (6 pages worth) by readers as to why the jobs are going unfilled.
In my opinion you are going to be hard pressed to hire well qualified CNC machinists in that pay range. The closer you get to $20 the better luck you will have. Think about it, at $14.00/hr. that comes out to $29,120 a year before taxes. Experienced CNC machinists could easily have more money in their toolbox than that! If a person has a family, a home, car, all the American dream sort of stuff then they are going to need more like $50,000 a year minimum and hope to have the spouse working to boost that as well.
The company I work for pays in the $11.00 - $15.00 range for CNC operators not CNC machinists. Most of our operators come through the door with no experience. We have to train them from the ground up.
Life is not only hard out there, it is expensive too!
In part it does. An "experienced CNC Machinist" often means the guy has to have experience with the CNC coding necessary for the machine to function. If you want cheap labor you need to be closer to the more desperate people, not 30 miles away in the burbs. Of course, even then the 'experienced' part will be hard to come by at even $20 an hour (41K).
You want the rest of the answer? You probably won't like it:
So where are all the private schools humping students to take huge loans for huge tuitions for CNC machinists? They can't charge the huge tuitions for 'machinists' so they are aiming at the gullible who think they will get jobs with salaries large enough to pay off the huge loans they are fooled into taking out if they major in 'business'. There is more money in screwing over students by playing off on their mostly mistaken beliefs about where the good jobs are. And that is why there is a dearth of 'skilled' manufacturing people right now. It's a matter of milking the educational market for the benefit of the banks and the lousy private schools, not for creating the skilled people our society actually needs.
Just another example of the ideology of Capitalism at work, the so called "Free Market".
Jobs, Yes; Applicants, No
Linear Mode
