Are manufacturing jobs really dying? It’s more complicated than believed
SUSAN Murray Carlock says her Indiana company is providing something popular opinion has deemed nearly extinct: Wellpaying manufacturing jobs. Over the last four years, Mursix Corporation, a creator of seat-belt buckles and bed frames, has sought to fill a variety of production positions. The average wages exceed US$ 20 ( RM90) an hour - a ladder to the middle class.
Trouble is, she can’t find workers.
“We’ve been on a growth trajectory that is crazy,” said Carlock, whose family bought the firm for roughly US$ 5 million in 1990 and has watched it grow into a US$ 42 million business. “But we face serious labour force issues.”
The company needs skilled labourers, men and women who can absorb the “tribal knowledge” of the tool makers before they retire, she said. This year, in an effort to draw talent, the firm set up an apprenticeship, paying promising employees as they learn the trade.
Carlock’s predicament isn’t isolated, even in the Rust Belt, where steadily vanishing manufacturing jobs became central to this year’s presidential election. She knows of at least two other plants in Muncie, Indiana, a college town in the state’s northeast quadrant, that face a similar hiring challenge.
“We’re all competing with each other for people,” she said. “To say manufacturing is dying in the United States just isn’t true.”
But American manufacturing is changing, and the enterprises flourishing today often demand a different set of skills than assembly lines of the past.
One reason for the labour shortage is the fear of change, said Michael Hicks, a business professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Carlock’s city. Many of the open roles involve computer assistance, which requires job training.
Though some companies and state programmes will cover the tuition bills, some workers, particularly those who’ve held the same job for decades, are hesitant to take them up on the offer, even if unemployment is imminent and the wages are competitive. The average hourly wage for these roles is approximately US$ 20, according to federal data.
“I’ve gone to war,” said Hicks, an army veteran turned academic, “and going back to school was scarier.” Young people aren’t helping fill the slots either, he noted. They don’t f lock to midsized cities like they do to, say, Chicago. — WP-Bloomberg