Posted on 10/12/2018 2:04:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
There is no limit on how many people Vallourec, a global manufacturing company with a steel pipe mill here in the Valley, could hire right now, said Chris Allen, the company’s talent acquisition manager for North America.
“We don’t have enough [workers] and we won’t have enough,” Allen said. “Our [hiring] number is infinite right now.”
That demand is no doubt driven partly by the boom in oil and natural gas, one of the primary industries Vallourec serves, but there are other issues at play that other Valley manufacturing companies are experiencing, too.
“We could use 20 more [employees] right now,” reports Mike Kovach, CEO of Youngstown-based City Machine Technologies, Inc., an industrial service provider and electromagnet manufacturer. That’s a 30 percent increase from CMT’s current employment of about 65.
Just within its field-service division, where salaries are in the six-figure range, Dearing Compressor and Pump Co. could hire about 10 people right now, according to company Vice President Becky Wall. Dearing, which is based in Youngstown and serves the oil and gas industry as well as making air compressors for manufacturing companies, is also looking to hire machine assemblers, project engineers and welders.
The problem is, few are applying for these jobs – and many of those who do apply can’t pass the drug test these companies require.
It’s not a new issue, nor is it unique to the Valley. But it has been exacerbated recently as the unemployment rate hits record lows leading to a tightened labor market.
On Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported the September unemployment rate of 3.7 percent was the lowest since 1969.
Beyond economic factors, people with knowledge of the local manufacturing industry say there is a cultural issue, as well. Students are eschewing the trades in favor of career paths that require four-year degrees or even higher levels of education. About two out of every three high school graduates go on to college to pursue a bachelor’s degree, according to recent federal data.
Meanwhile, students leaving college more indebted than ever.
According to Debt.org, total U.S. student debt now totals $1.4 trillion and average student debt for recent college graduates is more than $37,000. The average U.S. college graduate can expect to start out making about $50,000 per year. In this region, however, it is lower, with the overall average salary for Youngstown at about $40,000, according to PayScale.
Local manufacturing experts acknowledge not everyone is cut out for a career in a skilled trade. But local manufacturers and educational institutions that provide skilled trades training want students to at least be aware and open to the idea that, for the right person, there is a different path – one that can be stable, lucrative, debt-free and much different from the stereotypical factory job the word “manufacturing” often brings to mind.
WORKFORCE CHALLENGES
Local manufacturing companies began to feel the labor pinch in the last decade or so.
“For the last 10 years, we’ve all been struggling with the same problem,” said Wall, of Dearing Compressor.
The issue led the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers’ Coalition to form in 2011.
“This is the challenge that was the reason MVMC was formed,” said Jessica Borza, executive director of the group that represents dozens of companies in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.
“I think we’re seeing it present itself again over the past year or so as the labor market has tightened and manufacturing has continued to remain strong and grow,” she said. “The need for additional skilled workers is really quite high and is exacerbated by the fact that the labor market is so tight.”
Federal data indicates the trend is national.
In July, there were 506,000 open manufacturing jobs in the U.S., according to seasonally-adjusted, preliminary U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That’s a nearly 98 percent increase over the number of openings (256,000) in July 2008.
The Oh-Penn Manufacturing Collaborative, a partnership between MVMC and a similar organization serving Lawrence and Mercer counties, found in a 2015 report that there are more than 2,800 manufacturing openings annually in the region.
“WE NEED YOU”
Beyond the economic forces, what is causing these workforce challenges?
Local manufacturers primarily pointed to a few factors, one of them being a lack of drug-free candidates.
“It comes up in every interview,” Kovach, of CMT, said of the drug issue.
He estimated that about half of candidates who accept initial proposals from CMT either fail or will not take a drug test.
Perhaps the biggest issue employers cited is a shortage of workers going into skilled trades, an issue they believe must be addressed in schools.
The Mahoning County Career & Technical Center and Eastern Gateway Community College have the right programs in place, but it’s a matter of getting students and their parents to consider a skilled trade as a viable career path, they said.
“The message is not getting out there to the public and the parents,” said Wall.
As Claudia Kovach, CMT corporate secretary/vice president of marketing, put it: “We need butts in seats.”
Keith Murdock, EGCC executive director of marketing, agreed there is an issue getting students interested in these types of jobs.
“I think across the country, we’re finding that students right out of high school are not seeing the need for these types of occupations,” he said. “That’s one of our big marketing pushes, is to get these young adults more interested in the trades. Everyone seems to think you have to have a bachelor’s degree to get a good job, and that’s not the case.”
In fact, Murdock said, demand is so strong right now that in some cases employers will hire someone and then send them to a training program.
Additionally, people training for manufacturing positions such as machinists and welders are not only looking at near-certain hiring, but at good salary prospects.
Federal data indicates that in the manufacturing sector overall, the average hourly wage in September was $27.07 for all employees and $21.57 for production and non-supervisory employees. The average weekly hours for those groups was 40.8 and 42.1, respectively.
That puts those salaries in the $50,000 range.
Local companies and the MVMC also want to spread the word that manufacturing jobs are not what they used to be.
“We’re providing field trips for middle-school groups of kids so we can show them manufacturing is not dirty and unprofessional,” said Wall. “We have clean, modern manufacturing today, and that helps dispel the parents’ images from the 1980s.”
For the right person – as Mike Kovach puts it, “the kid who can fix his lawn mower” – the opportunity is there.
“We need you. Find us,” Wall said.
Re: “Local manufacturing companies struggling to fill open jobs”
Increase the pay and benefits.
Improve the working conditions.
Works every time.
If a company can’t afford to do that, then it needs to change its business plan.
If the new plan doesn’t work, the company needs to shut down.
Cut Welfare Beanies, and more people would choose these jobs
Same story here in Tulsa/NE OK and one of the employers is the same, Vallourec is at the Port of Muskogee. It wasn’t that long ago that they were at basically a skeleton crew and then it was “Katie bar the door” for the need to hire to meet demand. No welder or machinist who can pass a piss test needs to be out of work around here. I can’t walk into a manufacturing facility for a meeting without them asking the question about how to hire people. Now throw in that there are two large employers about to open operations, one being Amazon Distribution and the other HVAC sheet metal duct manufacturing. Each want to hire 1000 people. It’s going to be interesting.
Stories from the local manufacturing industry aren’t good on hiring. Tons of places are hiring but the numbers are at least two thirds of applicants at a minimum can’t pass a drug test. Some potential employers even have rates of nearly 90% applicants who can’t pass.
Even Pittsburgh was a sparkling gem of a rebounded rust belt city compared to Youngstown which is the halfway point between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and combined the worst features of each, then took it down two notches further.
Youngstown! Do people appreciate how big this is?
Wake up and smell the coffee, dude. 60+ million Americans have been aborted since 1973. These future workers that all these employers desperately need ended up in dumpsters.
I do. I worked for Armco for most of the 70s. Still have the mugs. “Ironman.”
Same here in Orlando....nobody wants to pay anything. I was rejected as a plant manager because my base demand was $75K. National ave is almost $100K. They required an engineering degree and Max range was $60K...they also required 10 years of plant and management experience, which I have in spades.
Too many workers are married to their jobs and don’t dare to look for better employment elsewhere.
Many of them were unemployed before and are happy to have a job today.
There you go...stop subsidizing the bums.. If they get hungry enough they'll go to work.
I’m just a glorified mr.fixit IT/the help desk yoyo in a 24/7 manufacturing facility.
Most of the equivalent jobs around me top out around 40-50k. Amazingly enough, I am in the 60k area.
For a guy who took 6 classes in computer repair and only carries an active A+, I have been blessed. It took a lot of dues paying to get there.
I’m looking to get some security related certs.
What...do some of you think this hard to believe..?? I've heard this very same thing from different sources (employers) and it's true..
THIS.
I took a tour of an Armco facility waaaay back. As a kid.
Your second statement describes me.
I believe it. Unfortunately too many companies rely on twenty-somethings in HR. My resume was too much for most of them. And then I was caught in the crash of W/Obama.
I might as well throw resumes into the river. Probably less theft of info that way.
I worked in one. Made 5 times what everyone else was making.
What you can’t find employees in the myriad of “Gender Studies”, or “Liberal Arts”, or “Philosophy” majors?
It was basically a triple-witching hour for me.
Didn’t purse a job that I should have over a dozen years ago. That was a big mistake. Couldn’t quite figure out the logistics of it. One of two I probably should not have let get away.
Still, I have plenty of skills and experience.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.