Three major workforce challenges face manufacturers
American manufacturing faces the perfect storm when it comes to finding and developing the workforce of the future:
Baby boomers are retiring from all sectors at a rate of 10,000 a day in the United States, taking their institutional and technical knowledge with them into retirement.
The number of American youth with sufficient STEM education for a shop floor or R&D department is inadequate – and those who do have these skills typically do not entertain manufacturing as a career option, often favoring the tech sector.
In recent years, the opioid crisis has reached critical levels, and a new report by the MAPI Foundation shows an ominous geographic overlap between U.S. manufacturing-centric regions and opioid abuse.
These factors threaten to undermine the healthy manufacturing resurgence unless measures are taken to manage them.