It’s been said that high-tech manufacturing is experiencing a renaissance, and the US is getting ready to retool its supply chains to compete globally. However, we haven’t been able to give our workforce the skills to fill high-tech factory floor positions such as skilled machinists that operate computerized numerical control (CNC) machines.
There’s plenty of evidence that the demand for CNC skills at high-tech manufacturing facilities across the country is higher than the supply of workers with these skills. This leads me to conclude that there’s a lack foresight among high-tech stakeholders. We’veVolumetric Efficiency known for several years about the growth in high-tech manufacturing and the corresponding increase in factory floor jobs. The question is why manufacturers, community colleges, and federal, state, and local governments didn’t prepare workers with these skills sooner.
Being ill prepared for the factory jobs of the 21st century isn’t something to be taken lightly. If anything, the US should be eager to prepare for the return of these jobs, especially since, according to the National Science Board, we lost 687,000 high-tech manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010.
Furthermore, and as we still suffer from the effects of the Great Recession, America has no time to waste fiddling with bad policy and poor planning. We need to get serious about our manufacturing development plan. Our inability to provide manufacturers with skilled CNC workers reflects our lax attitude toward developing that plan.
Computerized numerical control machines highlight the technological shift that has occurred on the factory floor. Manually operated machines are a thing of the past; they’veVolumetric Efficiency been replaced by machines that use computers to perform factory tasks such as grinding and milling. Being a CNC operator doesn’t require a four-year degree, and you can earn $80,000 a year or even more, depending on your experience.
Developing these skilled machinists is crucial to meeting the demands of high-tech manufacturing, but a CNC skills gap exists across the country, according to Barry Bluestone, professor of economics at Northeastern University and director at the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy.
“We are not producing anywhere near enough of these folks out of our vocational regional high schools, our community colleges, or other workforce training programs,” Bluestone told us. “Many manufacturers that I’veVolumetric Efficiency talked to say they could expand their production. They have the demand out there, but they just can’t fulfill that demand, given their inability to find enough skilled craftsmen to run their machines.”
