Why work in manufacturing when you can make just as much on welfare?
here are still plenty of people who don’t go to college or just spend two years or go to tech colleges. Many “colleges” are just the old vocational scools with a more expensive name.
The manufacturers don’t want to pay more or provide on-the-job training. They have the means to solve this problem if the really need the help.
What I have found about the manufacturing industry is that the majority of these jobs (around here) are contracted out. They last for 3 - 6 months and then they give you your walking papers.
I worked one of these jobs which lasted 5 months. Let me tell you this, I loved the job, but I was very unhappy with the contract terms. I’ve been offered several since and I will never take another contract job. They hire in volume and then let you go in volume! Very sad atmosphere!
Many employers have asinine qualification requirements in terms experience/certification/etc., that are leaving many job positions unfilled.
Until employers wise up and lower their standards, as well as become more willing to foot the bill for proper training, this will continue to be the case.
A little OJT goes a long way.
I’m a high school drop out who ended up spending a decade programming, operating and maintaining industrial robots.
I saw recently a elevator repair tech(escalators people movers) is up and coming
The problem is that the positions requiring bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees are mainly management/corporate positions. Without manufacturing, there is nothing left to manage. Other than engineering and science degrees of course.
I have said for years that dropping the shop classes from high school would have an impact. I didn’t think well enough to realize that it would hit now.
This is a great argument until you actually put your mind in gear and think.
Presently, the Chinese move youth in from their agricultural regions in order to manufacture things to be sold in the United States.
Now this article wants me to believe China can find people who are more qualified in those regions, than people in the United States are.
This is EXACTLY what Microsoft used as justification to vastly increase the H1B Visa program to give American Jobs to people who could barely speak english and were half-assed programmers, but DID work for next to nothing.
And when they got their green cards, they demanded better wages, the companies started sending jobs overseas to people who could hardly speak english, were half-assed programmers, but DID work for next to nothing.
Just an excuse folks. SSDD.
Godspeed
I don't understand, the last full generation of public high school graduates have been fully trained in filling out welfare applications.
The average pay varies widely depending on where you are geographically and union vs. non-union shops. It is NOT an avg. of $25.00/hour, but it is still much better than many other industries.
What honestly ticks me off is seeing true ASSEMBLY line workers that make as much or MORE than these skilled machinists. Why spend those years in school working your butt off when you can make $30.00/hour riveting in a bolt in a car in an assembly line?
More manufacturers need to offer apprenticeships as they do through the Tooling and Manufacturing Association (TMA) in Chicago. That was a formula that worked really well. Of course, if you have no metalworking classes, then finding those who would be a good fit for the programs would be rather difficult.
1) employers are posting openings but are not hiring - too risky now
2)When kids don’t play in their basements with handtool, only push a joy stick, they don’t have manufacturing skills
3) attitude - people want to clock in and do nothing tht requires responsibility and get paid good wages
From what I deal with every day, it’s a little bit of everything to blame for this. I’m responsible for hiring at an automotive plant (basic assembler to Engineer to Manager level), and from where I sit:
1) for the most part, the under 25 year-old crowd is bone-numbingly lazy. Exceptions to the rule, of course, and the hardest-working kids I’ve seen are the ones that come off the tobacco farms with no education beyond GED-level.
2) we have apprentice programs for Maintenance and Engineering. The apprentices that come out of the trade schools are real go-getters, the ones that graduate with degrees in Engineering don’t want to make anything less than $70k/year. Reality check time for many of them...they’ve been brainwashed into thinking a Mechanical Engineer can sit behind a desk making lists for others in their first year on the job...lol
3) we pay above market average, and have tremendous health benefits. Overtime is huge though, and the work is not easy. We have a lot of line workers quit within the first 3 months because they can’t hack standing all day.
4) many can’t pass background checks and/or drug tests.
Whether by intent or unintended consequences, the stage is being set for the next huge government bailout—of those who can’t find employment in their field of study and are defaulting on student loans.
Our oldest son sees recruiters every week at his high school. They know him by name before he meets them. He is one of a handful of males who have spent their high school years learning machining skills. His main focus has always been Auto. But his sophomore year, we pushed him to take Metals classes. He did that for a year and a half along with his auto classes. Then he signed up for Welding, but I think he dropped the class because he already knew everything that would be covered. His auto teachers are wonderful and have exposed him and a few dedicated others to so many things. They have defense contractors among others courting them because they say they cannot find anyone with their skills even among the community college students. They are offering to send them to school to round out any holes in their skill sets.
Dialogue to “Dummy Up”
In a live performance by
Frank Zappa & The Mothers
Whoa!
Somethin’ I never seen before
Been walkin’ down the street every day
Nobody like you ever passed my way
Maybe it must be too much sun
Couldn’t be my hat, must be too much...
Wait a minute! is that you?
What’s that? ...what, what’s that? ...
What, what’s that? ...what? ...
Dummy up
What is that? ...
I know what that is, I know what that is...
I bet you that’s a restaurant menu...
Let me see!...let me see!
Not only do you get the Desenex burger
What?
Not only...the Desenex burger
Well you are in for a real treat, Jim
Wait a minute...I think I like that dance better than...
What are you talkin’ about, creep?
What I’m talkin’ about is you’ve been in this killer fog down here too long
What?
You need somethin’ to get up and go to school with
Wait a minute, you’re not talkin’ to an old fool now,
You know I wasn’t born yesterday!
Heh heh heh!
Wait a minute...
I like that little dance you were doin’ there...
(Jeff Simmons tries to corrupt Napoleon Murphy Brock by showing him a lewd dance and suggesting that he smoke a high-school diploma...)
Hey, wait a minute!
Hey this, this stuff...
I never seen one of these before...that’s not a menu...
This stuff is expensive
What is that?
You shoot it, you’ll conserve all winter.
I do what?
It lasts longer
(not only do you get the Desenex burger)
Now come on, try it.
No, no.
It’s really good.
No. smoke that?!
Have I ever lied to you?
Have I ever seen you before?
I don’t, I don’t even know you!
Look...
I don’t even know what that is!
And you’re drivin’ me to smoke it?!...
Just before, we smoked the tapes that you made.
Smoked the tapes?
Smoked the tapes of your group.
I think I’m with the damned.
You can really get off.
Let’s try a joint of this.
A what?
A joint.
You mean this kinda joint?
No man!
Where you been in livin’, Reseda?
No, San Jose!...
(The evil dope pusher is cutting up a white gym sock, formerly owned by Carl Zappa and still damp. the shredded sock will be placed inside of a high-school diploma and ignited with a sulphur-preparation...his first taste of big city life!)...
That’s okay, wait...
Hey! the roach of this is really gonna be good, so I’ll...
Have mercy!
What do you do with that thing?
What do you do with that thing? yeah!
Wait a minute!
Wait a minute!
Wait a minute!
What do you do with that thing?
I wanna know!
Wait a minute!
(Now the next step of this operation: the evil corrupter of youth is going to take him from step one, which is a mere high-school diploma stuffed with a gym sock, to step two, which is a college degree stuffed with absolutely nothing at all. Smoke that and it’ll really get you out there)
I still don’t feel as good as I felt this mornin’...yeah yeah...
(you’ll grow out of it...)
Dummy up!
I heard it again, somebody said...
You see this?
Wait a minute!...
College!
College!
That’s college-rhythm.
You mean if I smoke that, it’s the same as this,
As if I was at college?
Roll it on up!
Roll it on up!
Roll it on up!
Give me that!...
No no, the college degree is stuffed with absolutely nothing at all...
You get, you get NOTHING with your college-degree.
But that’s what I want!
I forgot, I’m sorry...
Well, if you get nothin’, well that’s what I want.
(a true zen saying: nothing is what I want. the results of a higher education...)