Numbers

Promoting career awareness for manufacturing jobs is one of the primary missions for workforce-development professionals in manufacturing. It’s also one of the most difficult, with the constant harping in the news that seems to indicate manufacturing  jobs are going away and wondering who would want them anyway.

The other day I read two articles that provided data on manufacturing jobs. The first, in The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH), was entitled, Manufacturing Can Be a Marvelous Career. It said:

“By 2016, about 30 percent of the manufacturing workforce in Ohio will be ready for retirement. This means many positions should open for children now in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. It’s important for them to see manufacturing not as a dead-end, dead-brain job, but as an attractive career for educated, creative people.”

The second article, from Manufacturing Economy Daily, was entitled, Report Shows Major US Cities have Fewer Manufacturing Jobs than a Decade Ago. This article stated:

“Niney-eight of the nation’s 100 biggest markets have fewer manufacturing jobs now than they did a decade ago. Six have lost more than 100,000 positions.”

Oh, by the way, Ohio claims six of the 25 metropolitan areas that have experienced the highest percentage of manufacturing job loss. That’s the most for any state.

They say numbers don’t lie. Which ones? Is it any wonder that the public is confused?

Tough job those workforce development professionals have.

David C. Sansone, CAE, is Executive Director of the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) Educational Foundation and PMA's Director of Training and Education. He leads the association’s efforts to provide workforce-development solutions to the metalforming industry and interfaces with the industry’s workforce-solution providers.