Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Manufacturers can't find skilled workers

From Reuters:

U.S. manufacturers are failing to fill thousands of vacant jobs, surprising when 14 million people are searching for work.

Technology giant Siemens Corp., the U.S. arm of Germany's Siemens AG , has over 3,000 jobs open all over the country. More than half require science, technology, engineering and math-related skills.

Other companies report job vacancies that range from six to 200, with some positions open for at least nine months.

Manufacturing is hurt by a dearth of skilled workers.

A survey by ManpowerGroup found that a record 52 percent of U.S. employers have difficulty filling critical positions within their organizations -- up from 14 percent in 2010.

Owens said his company, which counts manufacturing behemoths Caterpillar and Motorola among its clients, has at any given time about 200 open positions.

18 comments:

Joe said...

Even skilled people do not want to stair into LCD oscilloscope and rework surface mount components, inhale flux all day for $10 hr.

To add who in any state of mind would want to move to Tennessee, Alabama or WORSE the peoples republic of Oklahoma.
The only place in the country where having a Penthouse magazine or can of beer with more then .03% alcohol on your own private partitioned tourbus lands everybody a huge on the spot cash fine or 7 days in jail.
Meanwhile Oklahoma and its German factory's have 4-10 stripper joints in every town.

Siemens supported the Hitler regime, in the "Nazification" of the economy.
Siemens had all its factories in and around the most notorious concentration camps.

Reuters shouldn't be posting Ideas Bloomberg can see.
Hmmm ---Bloomberg, Hitler, Queens, immigrants, cheap labor
--think about it !


-Joe

FlooshingRezident said...

Several things might be at work here.

First - employers will claim that they're unable to fill jobs with Americans in order to qualify for H1-b visas that enable them to import MUCH cheaper labor.

Second - today's employers, at least in the tech sphere, have incredibly unrealistic expectations and are looking for individuals with multiple skill sets in order to hire fewer people.

Whatever happened to providing training?

I don't believe this article for a minute - I meet unemployed people all the time that are extremely well-educated with great tech skills. Perhaps they're too expensive for these stingy companies?

Anonymous said...

Well, that's the point-- everyone is "too expensive" now. And no one is really sure how to fix that right? No one-- not TEA partyers, not democrats, not republicans. I take that back-- communists are 100% sure-- they always are!

RC said...

Welders earn $10 an hour? Prevailing wages are $30-$40+ an hour. And guess I won't ever rent a party bus in OK, but that's neither here nor there.

The story helps illustrate the poor state of the American vocational training system, and by extension, the inadequacy of our universal college prep education model. Not all students have the wherewithal to earn a finance degree and become a bond trader. Perhaps as policy, schools should provide adequate alternative educational options to willing American students that may someday fill the labor demand this article describes. Then we won't have to fill these jobs with HB-1 or illegal foreign nationals.

Anonymous said...

Everyone here is too expensive because we are competing with cheap labor countries like China, Brazil, and India. Their middle classes are on the ascent while ours are circling the bowl.

Anonymous said...

A lot of the manufacturing jobs went overseas due to federal regulations, unions etc. because it made it too expensive to manufacture goods here in the USA. So why should people train for these jobs when they aren't here? So imho during the past 30-40 years no one has been interested in these skills. Now that there is some need for manufacturing skills here in the good old USA there aren't enough workers to fill these jobs and they have to import people from other countries to do it.

Anonymous said...

Its fallout from telling the last two generations of kids that "go to college and get a nice office job so you don't have to slave away in a factory like dear old dad"

So now you have millions of kids with useless $100k degrees who cant turn a wrench the right way.

Real skills were looked down upon in favor of learning "management"

Well, now we have nobody to manage.

Not EVERYBODY should be going to college.

Joe said...

"Prevailing wages are $30-$40+ an hour"
----------
I remember seeing this same bullshit 10-12 years ago from LAMDA (power supply's and military gear) out on Long Island.
They Advertised wages for $35-75K a year in ALL the main newspapers.
When you got down there you must write in all your skills with an asking Salary on the application.
This as you sat next to some clueless immigrant BOCES student, living in some house with 20 people willing to work for minimum wage to get a foot in the door.
He or she WILL get the tech job but will NEVER see that raise to $30-$40+ or position opportunity.
BOCES and trade schools get HUGE kickbacks from these corporations and the government.
These trade schools like BOCES also discriminate against white Americans (perhaps someone knows why ?) and do all they can to keep them out or at the bottom of the list.

-Joe

Joe said...

Quote:
"Employers will claim that they're unable to fill jobs with Americans in order to qualify for H1-b visas that enable them to import MUCH cheaper labor"

BINGO !!!!!
Thats EXACTLY it and our tax $$ go to recruit and train these H1-b slaves at schools like BOCES.

Anonymous said...

you are viewing the fall of Rome first hand and the enslavement of our working class and you can thank those you elected! Both parties are guilty of treason.

Queens Crapper said...

You mean like this?

Belmont stable owners insist foreign workers are needed for dirty jobs that NYers refuse to do

Anonymous said...

maybe the manufacturers could interview the "FLEA BAGGERS AT OWS. are they not looking for employment?

Tassilo von Parseval said...

FlooshingRezident said...

>First - employers will claim that >they're unable to fill jobs with >Americans in order to qualify for >H1-b visas that enable them to >import MUCH cheaper labor.

That's not how it works. H1-B visas are not available for manufacturing jobs. Visa recipients at the very least need a Bachelor degree.

Also, positions to be filled through H1-Bs require a certain minimum salary. I believe for NYC (but I am not sure if those numbers are regionally different) this number is in the order of $85,000.

Plus, these things cost money and time. Time in particular because there are legal requirements that mandate certain things be done before the work permit will be granted by the DOL. One of them is posting a public requisition for at least a month.

Finally, the amount of H1-B visas is limited. No company is going to fill lower-grade jobs with those. It's one of the reasons why many companies try to replace the visa with a Green Card eventually to free up a slot.

Cheers,
Tassilo

Anonymous said...

Yo, "Joe",
continuing on the Hitler theme....

"Henkel", a German based company which produced bombers for the Nazi airforce and "Zyclon B" poison gas for their death camps, manufactures "Dial" soap sold in America.

Now I ask you....
why did we ever consider ever going to war with any enemy...."Nazis, Fascists, Japs, Gooks, Reds, Viet Cong, etc."?

We only wound up kissing their asses and buying their products after the "peace treaties" were signed?

Anonymous said...

Maybe nobody wants a dummy working in their tech plant who knows more about Madonna's bodily measurements than they do about voltage, resistance or amperage.

"I" equals "E" over "R".
Can you equate that?

Anonymous said...

I had more than a few Mosen-Nagant rounds fly by my head in 1969, all made in China. But what the hell, we're all friends now! Right?

Anonymous said...

Mosen-Nagants made in China?

Wow!

(I think some post WW II) M1 Garrands were made by Beretta in Italy too.

Anonymous said...

Supposedly everyone learns trig in high school, but whereas fifty years ago GIs needed trig to fire mortars, today they have to be retrained in trig to use a robot.

Post a Comment