Why Michigan Employers Have Difficulty Filling Skilled Trades Jobs

[Purveyor]

By Rick Haglund

Michigan’s recovery from its “lost decade” has sparked an ongoing debate about whether the state faces a shortage of skilled workers ready to fill available jobs, primarily in manufacturing and construction.

Employers say they can’t find enough qualified welders, tool-and-die makers, machine operators and others with the skills they need to rebuild their businesses.

But many economists are skeptical. They cite flat, or even declining, wages as evidence that the labor market is slack. If employers really were having a hard time finding qualified workers, they say, wages would be rising.

--CLIP
Employers also want experienced workers. Only 4 percent of 150 online ads for skilled trades jobs studied by state officials said that employers were looking for entry-level workers and were willing to train them.

But the number of active apprenticeship programs in the state is down 50 percent from 2005, making it difficult for some to get the training they need.

At the same time, employers have been able to keep a tight lid on wages.

MORE...

http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/07/rick_haglund_why_employers_hav.html

[GlashFordan]

1. Well whaddya know

Guess eliminating all those vocational opportunities worked out real well. Believe it or not, young folks... Machine work and welding and auto repair were once taught in high school.

When I graduated, pretty much every guy knew how to weld, run a lathe or rebuild an engine.

[madville]

2. My high school paid for technical school

Juniors and senior that wanted to go to technical school could do so instead of going to high school classes, you still hot your high school diploma along with a technical degree. They still allow it but the students have to pay for the technical school out of pocket now.

[GlashFordan]

3. Outstanding.

Ironically, in the last 10-20 years everyone and their brother learned computer programming and became CIS pros which is like the easiest thing to outsource!!

Try outsourcing a welding job on a project in Iowa or something lol. Although now maybe we will start giving visas to people who have mechanical skills.

[exboyfil]

6. We do the same here

Have some pretty good courses at the High School and will pay for community college courses once they are exhausted under Post Secondary Education Opportunity. My daughter, who is planning on engineering, is signed up for Metal Tech I and II and Consumer Automotive. She did not get into Automotive II, but she tried for the courses as a senior and probably would have got that course if she started trying for these courses as a junior. We also have a CNC course.

Of course we are a relatively wealthy suburban High School in a former sundown town. It is interesting that our local major employer expends considerable effort in encouraging our kids to go into these trades (a friend's kid, who was good in these classes elected to go for law enforcement at a community college instead of following up on his courses - he has to find his own way but he could have had a pretty secure life if he had elected to follow up on the machining classes).

[knitter4democracy]

7. We have tech programs.

They've been moved to tech schools that the county ISDs run instead, but we have them. The one here in Calhoun County is amazing and does a great job of training our students trade skills and more.

[JoeyT]

10. Depends on what kind of welders they're looking for.

Being able to weld and being able to work as a welder aren't the same thing. About half the "welders" I know can't actually pass a plain structural test. That said, there is no shortage of welders.

99% of the time when someone or somewhere is complaining about lack of qualified workers, what they're really griping about is not being able to find qualified workers that will accept 1/4th-1/2 industry standard.

Edited to add: I actually work in the field. About once a week I get a call from someone offering me the amazing opportunity to make half what I'm making now. Once I factor in the per diem they aren't paying, I'd end up making a quarter to a third what I'm making. And I'm not making that much for the field I'm in.

[madrchsod]

4. you learn from the guy or gal that you will replace someday

try to find someone who knows how to work in a drop forging shop,steel mill,and machine shops. hell there are employers around here who have been looking for skilled help. the big problem they want young employees and many have`t the skills or the work ethic. anyone over 40 is just about unemployable.

[MichiganVote]

5. There is some truth,but mi employers WHINE about

Everything. Seriously, they do next to nothing and when they throw their toddler fits, the repub. gov't we have sticks the taxpayers for the suckers. They don't hire in Michigan. Instead they give present workers longer hours for less pay with more job roles.

[SheilaT]

8. I have a friend in the Pittsburgh area who works

for the state employment service. He's been there about eight or so years, and is retiring at the end of this year. He has talked often about the decline in wages being offered.

Several years ago one company placed a help-wanted notice with him, looking for a French translator. $10.00/hour. My friend, who would be qualified to do that job, tried politely to explain to them that the job needed to pay at minimum double that. They said, No, we can get someone at that rate.

No one ever applied for the job. He contacted them a year later and they had never filled the position.

That, in a microcosm, is a lot of what's wrong these days. Companies want very skilled and experienced workers, and want to pay less that what starting pay would have been a decade or so ago. And don't understand why they can't get decent employees. Blame the employees for lack of loyalty and work ethic. Meanwhile, upper management all gets large raises each and every year.

[Lugnut]

9. Employers don't want to pay.

Oh sure. They want and need these workers but they don't want to pay what they're worth. If they offered union scale wages I think trained skilled workers would be lined up at the doors for interviews.

[JoeyT]

11. If they raise the pay they're offering people will be beating on their doors.

Or they can hire construction workers that bought all their tools at Harbor Freight last week (The few that bring tools) for rock bottom prices and see how that works out for them.

Edited to add: Just checked the pay for that area in my field. The first six jobs I clicked on were offering foremen pay that's more appropriate to a first class helper. And that's why they can't find workers.

One was offering $10 an hour for a tig welder on pipe. I honestly hope that was just a typo.

[ck4829]

12. "I want people to work for me, but I want to pay them in peanuts! Why is nobody working for me?!"