Why Can't We Find New Employees?

You hear it all the time that there is a recession and that people are out of work.  Why can't we find new employees then?

The state of college education in our country is very alarming.  Teens are taking college prep classes and taking pre-professional classes in college.  It seems like everyone is studying teaching, nursing, accounting or business management.  I recently watched a PBS special that explained how students used to take classes that would provide a well-rounded education and would then receive their training on the job.  An alarming number of graduates will tell you the same frustrating story today: "I took classes towards my career and no one will hire me without experience and no one will give me the experience I need!"  From there they often get jobs that pay minimum wage or go back for a master's degree.  Is it that no one wants to train people anymore?  Can students really afford the huge yearly increases in college education only to graduate with no prospects and a burdening loan?

Are blue collar jobs dead? No. There is a growing gap between jobs that require a college degree and the minimum wage jobs that only require a GED or diploma.  In the middle are the skilled trades jobs and they can pay very well.  These jobs often require more than a high school education and often certification classes, but less than a bachelors degree.  What are these trades exactly?  Machinists, electricians, HVAC, carpentry, pipe-fitting, welding and many others.  These jobs can be demanding, often require hard work, purchasing of one's own specialty tools and long hours.  Aren't all blue collar jobs unionized? No. Unions were established to protect employees from being exploited from working long hours for little pay. Not all skilled trades are unionized — nor are all machine shops.

I work at Mac-Mold Base in Romeo, a manufacturing company that makes mold bases for plastic injection molding.  Basically all plastic parts from laundry baskets to box fan grills to car parts to pop bottles are all made in molds made of steel or aluminum.  We make the container that goes in the injection machine and produces parts.  Our company was founded over 20 years ago by a blue collar guy who worked in a mold shop through high school and stayed on after graduating, taking college classes at night.  He married the boss's daughter and when her father passed relatively young, her brothers took over the business so they struck out on their own.  They now employ over 20 people and run two shifts a day and have added a new machine every year for the past four years.  The employees here work overtime every week, are provided with insurance, uniforms and 401K matching.  The owner, Mike, has developed techniques to keep our machines busy with both our main line of work and outside service work.  That means that the machines always have some sort of work lined up to be done on them no matter what the market is like.  That is how we survived the recession without reducing wages or cutting hours.

I don't know if you've heard, but machine shops all over town are slammed, from automotive to aerospace industries.  Some of our steel supliers are out of inventory and are often shipping directly from the steel mills to the customers.  We just received seven jobs yesterday and seven more today.  The work just keeps coming, forcing us to run 24 hours a day to keep up with the demand.  Our problem, though, is finding people who want to work and can do the job.  We have interviewed many people over the last few months and are concluding that either the people we seek don't exist (unlikely) or they are already happily employed somewhere else.  With all of the shops that closed during the recession, you would think that there would be a large pool of people out there to pick from, that we would be turning people away at the door.  Maybe they are persuing other careers?  We would prefer someone with experience but we are also willing to train the right people.  Sometimes it is better if a person has not picked up any bad habits yet.  More experienced people are often more resistant to using different techniques. 

So what are we going to do?  I guess we'll just keep hanging out a shingle and hope that someone happens to see our ad online.  I hope we find some people soon because the work isn't letting up anytime soon and you can only do so much work with fewer people.