Groom or steal?
Exiting pandemic, state needs 300K skilled workers
To better understand Joost Ploegmakers’ search for people with the skills to work at ASML’s huge factory in Wilton, one need only consider two points — how long can it take to detect any defect in one of its key components, and how much does the machine cost that is held up until the defect is fixed?
The cost? Millions upon millions of dollars. The span? As long as a year.
Against those realities, ASML continues hiring up in Wilton where it now employs more than 2,000 people in one of Connecticut’s most exacting factories, painstakingly piecing together massive machines that semiconductor makers use to imprint microscopic circuitry on chips and digital displays. Even as manufacturing and technology companies across Connecticut continue to bemoan the skills of bluecollar workers emerging from schools that train them, ASML continues to double down on its plant here.
But Gov. Ned Lamont has signaled in the past month that he continues to hear from other employers with plenty of skepticism about having similar success, and has introduced several new initiatives even while continuing to deal with COVID-19 response. On Thursday, Lamont unveiled his plan to reverse a 3.5 percent decline in college enrollment last year, among other measures proposing high school seniors be required to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid as a graduation requirement, to ensure that they learn of any financial aid packages for which they might qualify.
“Now more than ever, you need that extra degree; you need that extra certificate; you need that opportunity to help you pull up,” Lamont said Thursday during a web conference to discuss his administration’s proposals. “Kthrough-12, by itself, is not enough — not in this incredibly competitive world with the sophistication of a lot of the jobs that are out there right now.”
Few labor under the exacting standards required at ASML, which sits alongside the East Hartford jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney at the top of the the short list of Connecticut’s most advanced manufacturers. When it came time to site a new Pratt & Whitney plant making the precision-engineered airfoils that are among numerous components that cannot fail — spinning during flight at 60 revolutions a second to propel jets forward — Raytheon chose North Carolina.
ASML continues to invest both in its Wilton factory complex and the workforce who arrive there each days as “essential” workers under Connecticut’s pandemic employment rules — with its innermost clean rooms perhaps the safest working environment in Connecticut given extensive decontamination measures down to the the head-to-toe protective suits worn by workers inside.
Ploegmakers has been with ASML since 2010, and last August became the lead manager in Wilton after the retirement of Bill Amalfitano who led the plant through its expansion the past several years. Ploegmakers puts in layman’s terms the requirements for one of the manufacturing jobs ASML is filling in Wilton — the fabrication of the optical lenses inside its machines.
“For some of the [components], it takes more than a year before they finally end up in a system, because we start with the raw materials and you have to do milling, polishing, grinding, and then flattening and the bonding and a lot of steps in between — and then it gets assembled into a module, and then it ends up in the machine,” Ploegmakers said. “A year later, you see what the actual performance is of that module in the system. Sometimes, even the smallest [defect] that occurred somewhere along that line, you only find a year later . ... It can be a small scratch that you cannot detect with the eye that can be the issue at the end of the line. That’s really where the skill of the people and the
“I’m tired of having to try to steal (workers) from other companies. Time and time again, folks we’ve hired ... and trained them and they’ve got great skill sets, and they get recruited to leave. So that’s a daily challenge we deal with.”
HABCO CEO Brian Montanari
craftsmanship come into play.”
Last October, a Governor’s Workforce Council convened by Lamont released a 50-page proposal that is now under consideration by the Connecticut General Assembly under the sponsorship of Sen. Tony Hwang, D-Fairfield. Among other elements, the council recommended creating training
programs in manufacturing, health and information technology jobs that can be scaled statewide, and a comprehensive adult education program to help people switch to careers where new hires are required with advanced skills.
Speaking Thursday on Lamont’s web conference, state Sen. Will Haskell, D-26, noted an earlier state study estimating that 70 percent of the Connecticut’s jobs by 2025 will require beyond a
high-school diploma.
“We’re nowhere close to meeting that goal — in fact, we need to produce 300,000 more graduates in order to meet that workforce demand,” Haskell said.
During a manufacturing summit last October staged by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, the CEO of HABCO Industries said he hired more than 40 people in 2019 on the eve of the pandemic, with the Glastonbury company providing tooling
services to Pratt & Whitney and other aerospace customers.
“I’m tired of having to try to steal (workers) from other companies,” said HABCO CEO Brian Montanari. “Time and time again, folks we’ve hired ... and trained them and they’ve got great skill sets, and they get recruited to leave. So that’s a daily challenge we deal with.”