The Myth of the Unskilled Factory Workforce

The Myth of the Unskilled Factory Workforce

When President Trump met with US manufacturing CEOs in February, he reiterated his commitment to reestablishing factory jobs lost to Mexico and China. While this topic has been on the president’s radar for months, it may be subject to a common misconception that there are loads of factory jobs that any unskilled worker could fill if only they were available. Factories have come a long way since the days of mass unskilled labor, which the CEOs did not hesitate to point out.

One of the two dozen CEOs in attendance stated that “The jobs are there, but the skills are not,” according to Manufacturing Automation magazine. Government statistics show that there are more than 300,000 factory jobs currently open in the US, a number which has tripled in the last 8 years. One executive said that his company recruits high school graduates but that many of them lack the reading comprehension and math skills to adequately understand the technical aspects of the job.

Trump challenged the CEOs to train the American workforce for these technical skill jobs. How they plan to do that for what Trump referred to as “The good jobs…the real jobs” remains to be seen.

Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Mar 3rd 2017

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