Manufacturers and businesses struggle to find skilled workers
By Shira Schoenberg | MassLive.com | December 10, 2012
Dozens of people walked around a recent Somerville job fair handing out resumes. There was Jim Lundy, 53, an English teacher with a Ph.D. and 30 years of experience. When he could not find a teaching job, he started a business that sells used blue jeans, but has been unsuccessful. There was Isabel Sendao, 38, who lost her job in marketing and sales a year and a half ago and is keeping current on the latest technology while interviewing for jobs. There was Sandy Carr, 51, who worked at non-profit and social service jobs for three decades. She was laid off when a medical billing firm went under and has been doing temporary and contract work until she can find something full-time.
“Job searching’s a constant thing to be doing these days,” Carr said.
At the same time, there are businesses in Massachusetts looking for workers. Denise Petersen, who works in human resources for B&E Precision Aircraft Components in Southwick, said her company is looking for computer numerically controlled machinists and burr hands, a type of skilled laborer. The company is competing with other local tool companies and having a hard time finding workers with the necessary skills. “As experienced or skilled workers leave, it’s getting more difficult to find people in those areas that have experience,” Petersen said.
The “skills gap” is a fact of life in the recovering economy. Jobs are opening up and workers are seeking them. But the unemployed workers do not always have the same skills that employers are looking for. In some cases, industries have shifted during the recession, some recovering faster than others. In other cases, the recession actually delayed the skills gap, as older workers pushed off retirement. With the recovery, some of those workers are preparing to leave.
Because those fields with job openings often require specialized education, the state, non-profit organizations and businesses have started numerous initiatives to train workers to meet the needs of specific companies and industries.
“In general, we’re facing a significant challenge in the next couple of years with the retirement of baby boomers,” said Eric Nakajima, assistant secretary for innovation policy at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development. “In industries across the state, there are a lot of workers 55 and older who will be exiting the labor market.” According to a report by Commonwealth Corporation and New England Public Policy Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, 20.5 percent of the workforce in Massachusetts in 2008 to 2010, and 22.4 percent in the Pioneer Valley, was over 55.
Nakajima said the recession temporarily halted baby boomers’ exodus from the workforce. “We anticipate as the economy improves, that’s going to get significantly worse over the next couple of years,” he said.
Nancy Snyder, president of the Commonwealth Corporation, a quasi public workforce development agency that studies the skills gap, said precision manufacturing and health care are the major areas in the Pioneer Valley where employers are struggling to find workers. According to the Commonwealth Corporation report, manufacturing accounted for 9.5 percent of the employment in the Pioneer Valley last year. Education and health services accounted for 33.2 percent.
Elsewhere in Massachusetts, technology, software and life sciences companies need more skilled employees. “One of the things we’ve found across the state is this issue of an aging workforce, and really not enough young workers to fill their jobs when they leave,” Snyder said.
Manufacturing in particular has undergone a change. The industry lost huge numbers of jobs during the recession but has remained fairly stable since 2009, according to a 2012 report by Northeastern University economist Barry Bluestone and others. However, the industry has shifted away from low-tech manufacturing such as textiles and toward high-tech areas like medical equipment and electronics. The manufacturing workforce is aging, which, combined with high turnover, led the study’s authors to conclude that there could be 100,000 job openings in manufacturing in the next decade.
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