It’s high hot dog season and time for some peak patriotism! 🎆🌭 While we’re all being told to buy American, a shortage of manufacturing workers could make that harder than it seems. 🤔
A recent NY Times write up dives deep into why so many factory jobs are unfilled. Keep reading to get the scoop! 🍨
Here’s Five Fast Facts on U.S. manufacturing jobs:
- 🧑🏭 Workin’ for the Weekend - According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are roughly 400,000 unfilled factory jobs in the U.S. With Baby Boomers on their way out, there aren’t enough younger, skilled (and available) workers to take their place. As the country turns towards homemade production, this trend could become a big issue.
- 🐐 Remote Goat - People in cushy service jobs aren’t likely to jump into a manufacturing job for a variety of reasons. A main one? White-collar jobs often offer flexible schedules and the opportunity to work from home. They haven’t yet figured out how to bring factory work to the living room.
- 🎒 The Ol’ College Try - We’ve also told the last several generations that going to college will provide you with a better life than a blue collar. But now, it’s biting us in the butt. Many of today’s manufacturing jobs require a ton of training and the use of high-tech equipment, too. Even if today’s eager high school grads want to get into the trades, they’ll still need to go through a hands-on apprenticeship before hitting the ground running.
- 🔥 Hot Skills - How is the Trump administration tackling this issue? A new initiative called Make America Skilled Again aims to roll existing workforce training programs under one roof. Additionally, at least 10% of the funding for the program has to go towards apprenticeships. Trump also signed an executive order tasking his cabinet with creating one million registered apprenticeships.
- 🔪 In the Cut - On the flip side, the Trump administration has made some pretty aggressive cuts to blue-collar training programs. They’ve also made moves to eliminate the Job Corps, a program that gives at-risk youths trade-based career paths. Many big companies rely on Job Corps graduates to staff their workforce. Some worry the cuts will have a negative impact on hiring efforts.
🔥Bottom line: If you’re itching to bust out of the cube and onto the shop floor, don’t let the skills gap discourage you! It’s never too late to make a career change. Should you take the job data you see in the headlines at face value? Unfortunately, the math ain’t always mathin’. For more on why that is, check out this article.
Do you work in manufacturing?
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