There’s new evidence that the middle class has been steadily shrinking, according to a Pew Research Center Study. It happened during the same period that manufacturing jobs – once a hallmark of the middle class--- have been disappearing in this country.
When you ask young people what they want to do with their lives, not many will tell you they want to go to work in a factory.
“I think a lot of the younger generation has witnessed their parents or grandparents lose their jobs to offshoring in the 90s or they see it as dead end, no security, dark dank, just the most horrible description you can imagine. “
Stephanie Surrett is Executive Director of the South West Virginia Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence. She’s part of a push to resurrect the industry in this region. A recent study by The Boston Consulting group suggests this area is well positioned to grow once again, as a manufacturing center.
“But we also have a skill shortage of being able to fill the jobs that we already have in the areas of machining welding, industrial maintenance, mechanics or mechatronics.”
Mechatronics is kind of a combination of engineering, electronics and other highly technical systems; A relatively new word for a new multidisciplinary field.
And it’s also part of what makes today’s factories so different from what they once were. They’re becoming places where highly skilled people work in collaborative teams. But that’s also part of the problem. Surrett says there are not enough people with the training to fill the demands of these jobs.
“We’ve seen a decline in interest among the younger generation, and the millenials of ‘Gen Y’ are not looking at manufacturing because of the perceptions they have of it. So we have a gap of people who have not chosen that particular job or that training. You know their parents say go to college, and that’s great but not everybody has to go to college in order to have a good job.”
The kerfuffle that followed a recent presidential debate when a candidate suggested trained welders could make more money than some others with college degrees highlights the problem for this sector. Jobs in manufacturing go unfilled and that looks likely to increase in coming years.
“So by 2025 we’re going to be dependent for 75% of our workforce on millennials.”
That’s because the baby boomer generation’s retirement rates will increase in the next few years. Along with that, say economic development experts, both the pay and opportunities for career advance in manufacturing are also expected to rise. It’s estimated more than half of American jobs may one day, no longer require 4 year degrees, instead workers will get 1 or 2 year certificates of with frequent updates acquire new skills throughout their careers. It could be a new way to look at factory workers in our society. One that Stephanie Surrett hopes will attract a new generation to a new kind of workplace.
“We’re set up to get them in, get them trained and help them move into those positions that will be open and at the same time work with current systems that are in place to increase the interest in manufacturing careers.
So how can companies entice new workers to consider careers in manufacturing and how will that training roll out? We’ll hear about that in our next report about the changing face of factories.
There’s a shift underway in the American workforce. A new focus on skill sets and specialized technical training is needed for the workers of the twenty first century. In part 2 of our series, “It’s Not Your Grandparents Factory” Robbie Harris looks at preparing workers to fill the next wave of jobs.
Move over Industrial revolution and make way for the new revolution in manufacturing.
“There’s a principle called the ‘One, Two, Seven Principle”
Stephanie Surrett is Executive Director of The Southwest Virginia Manufacturing Center of Excellence or SVAMCOE.
“And this is true of any industry, any sector, that at any facility you’re going to need one highly degreed person, like a PhD or a Masters’ for every two Bachelors or Associates and Seven post secondary, skilled individual.”
And for those seven out of ten people, that means industry focused advanced skills training for the most in demand occupations. Instead of degrees, people get certificates of expertise that will be recognized all over the country and the world. And since the training is tailored to what today’s companies are looking for, in many cases, employers not workers cover the costs. The first phase of SVAMCOE’s project is for workers already on the job to ramp up their skill sets.
“So the Center of Excellence is designed to get those experienced folks in there, get them hands on training and get them back to work.”
Phase 2 is aimed at attracting new workers.
“A student can go to the career and technical center and some instances, if not most of them, have dual enrollment with their community college. So they get to do all this training for free and have credentials and when they finish high school and maybe a semester at the local community college, can make more money, without debt, than someone with a four-year degree.”
Grants from Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission totaling three million dollars are helping SVAMCOE equip area community colleges with new training tools. Many did not or could not keep up with changes in technology when manufacturing saw a decline in the 1990’s and never retooled -- until now.
“With first year funding (we) bought new welding equipment for Virginia Highlands Community College, new machining for Wytheville and the other community college, also getting all their instructors certified so they are aligned with the Siemens Certification for Mechatronics, AWS, The American Welding Society for welders…”
There it is again, welding as the new symbol for the emerging trend toward alternative paths to education and employment. Not to mention a way back to the middle class. Lennie Gail Mitcham is of the Southwest Virginia Alliance for Manufacturing.
“In southwest Virginia, the average (yearly pay) for all other establishments is about $34 thousand. For manufacturing, it’s about $44 thousand.”
If decent pay once made factory work a viable option for living the American dream, it’s no longer quite the case. And that may be because that dream is different for a new generation.
“Millenials you’ll find are less motivated by pay. –We like to get paid --I’m a millennial, we like to get paid but we’re more motivated by time off and we’re more motivated by feeling like we’re a part of something. –We don’t like to just see the small picture, we don't’ want to, just do it. We want to know why am I doing it, what’s the big picture.”
The assembly line and repetitive work of your grandparents’ factories are giving way to more challenging and perhaps more rewarding ways of working, where employees have a hand in the bigger picture. And the idea that manufacturing is about more than just making something.
“They just need to get that message that manufacturing is about making a difference.”
Again, Stephanie Surrett.
“Certainly having your hands on something that, you know hey, your house is cool because I helped make a heat pump or hey, you’re driving that car because I had something to do with that.”
In our next report we’ll look at how manufacturing companies are not only attracting new workers, but also, keeping them.
Decades of decline in the domestic manufacturing industry became something of a downward spiral for the American middle class as well. But new efforts are underway to pull out of it ---and breathe new life into both.
Sure, some factories in this country haven’t changed much. The work can be tedious, the hours long and the prospects for advancement, limited. Turnover rates are high, in some parts of southwestern Virginia, as high as 40 per cent. But some employers are waking up to new ways of keeping workers –by keeping them happy. Stephanie Surrett with the Southwest Virginia Manufacturing Center of Excellence.
“One employer adjusted their attendance policy in that you have your vacation but you also have those days, ‘Well, my friends just called me and I want to go camping this weekend and they let them do that 18 days for the year. And he says that he was against, avidly against it, he said but attendance and retention has improved and retention has improved.
And as manufacturing more machine driven, it becomes clear to companies that it can pay to value the humans in the equation. The new factory workers, just like in every other sector, are in search of a better work/life balance than their grandparents and even their parents had.
And if millenials expect more from their employers, well that goes both ways.
“We do ask a lot of our employees. It’s not a boring job. And there’s a lot of training that goes with it. “
Vince Hatcher is Vince Hatcher Site Manager for Hollingsworth and Vose in Floyd, Virginia. With 150 workers, it’s the largest employer in the County.
“ We love getting the high energy people, the people who want to come to work and learn and be part of developing new things. “
H & V is headquartered in Boston where it began as a paper making company in the 1700s. Now it makes high tech polymer filters for air and water systems. A sign in the factory reads – Filter Products for a Cleaner World – a subtle message about the meaning of the work being done here.
“It’s not the simple repetitive task you might have in head when you think about factory work.”
No it’s not. Small knots of workers moving around a largely vacant factory floor and you start to wonder, where are all the people?
“Right, it’s not a long assembly line with lots of people. What we do is design machines that are integrated and have a lot of capability. And if you design the control systems right, it actually makes the job more interesting for the employees and better for the employees, the environment gets better as you automate.”
Aaron Martin is a production technician, part times hift leader and trainer of new hires.
Martin says,“ I like coming in here knowing I’m making something that’s been highly engineered. You know, I’m not just making plastic bags or you know, soap for a living. We’re making stuff that’s really critical. Most of the things we make in here have very tight tolerances on what’s good and what’s bad and you need smart people that can come in here and make product like that.
He’s been here almost 5 years. He’s 23. He works the night shift and goes to school during the day. H & V reimburses him for his tuition.
“I got my associate’s degree from New River Community College. I recently finished that. My degree track was business management, which is certainly useful here. And now, I’m at Radford University doing a double, maybe triple major in management, information systems and computer science. And hopefully if I get those 3 done I’ll go on for my MBA.”
Human Relations Director, Doug Berman says, “Everybody here has a career path. “
Doug Robinson is Human Resources Manager at H&V. When he describes some of the work he does with employees, it sounds like the work high school guidance counselor.
“Yes. That’s exactly what we do. Some of our folks may not want a full time career path in this area, but they’d like some exposure to it so we try to make that happen through project work or problem solving opportunities, so they get to dabble in an area that they have some interest in.”
Aaron Martin said, “Since the day I did my interview to get hired on here, the first thing I told them was, I don’t plan on being a production manager forever.
“I want to get my degree and I want to advance. I want to be in management.”
This may not be your grandparents’ factory, but it was Martin’s grandfather’s. He worked here years ago and Martin saw the good living it provided. Now, as the state of Virginia plans to increase funding for advanced training in manufacturing, people like Stephanie Surrett, hope to get a visit from political leaders spearheading the effort to train workers for the high tech factories of the future.
“I think it’s a long drive from Richmond to the southwest. We know the same roads that take us there would bring them here. It would be better if they would come see us more. I feel like there’s some great partnerships being formed and I want southwest Virginia to realize the full potential of that and not be disregarded just because we’re so far away.”
