The manufacturing skills gap is a serious matter of concern to industry leaders and decision-makers— over 27 percent of the industry’s workers are expected to retire within the next ten years, leaving countless vacancies behind with only a small supply of young candidates to take their place. Manufacturing has yet to attract the new generation of talent in the same way industries such as high tech and SaaS have. But what can be done to change that?

In our previous blog, we discussed indirect strategies to alleviating this resource crisis, including leveraging Managed Services to lighten the load. In this article, we’ll focus on some more direct approaches to address labor issues in manufacturing: workforce development within the industry as led by NAM and in-house training programs to reskill existing talent or attract newcomers. 

Manufacturing Workforce Development Initiatives

The long-term skills shortage in manufacturing has already led to an abundance of industry initiatives aiming to address the resource problem. Take a look at NAM’s education and workforce development partner, The Manufacturing Institute (MI). Through programs such as STEP Women’s Initiative, Heroes MAKE America, and FAME, MI is reaching out to students, veterans, women, and more—groups that have traditionally not worked extensively in the industry or that could benefit from a career revamp program. 

In addition, the manufacturing industry’s largest program for rebuilding the workforce for the future is Creators Wanted, another campaign presented by NAM and MI. This program is centered around the manufacturing skills gap problem and filling the large number of anticipated vacancies (4.6 million) in the coming years. By disproving misconceptions about modern manufacturing and promoting vocational and reskilling education programs, Creators Wanted is supplying the industry with its future workforce.

Programs such as these and many others are invaluable to manufacturing organizations, a way to not only build up new recruits but also stay on the cutting edge of…

Want to keep reading? The complete ebook is available to download for free: Addressing the Manufacturing Labor Shortage.