Amidst anxiety about the future of factories in the United States, the Department of Labor is reporting that the manufacturing industry has the highest number of open positions in 15 years.
“There’s a mismatch between workers’ skills and job requirements,” Gerhard Glomm, economics department chair at IU, said.
This discrepancy comes from local educational and vocational systems that do not meet the standards for what is required of employees in today’s job industry, Glomm said.
In 2015, about 50 percent of manufacturing employees had at least some college education, according to the August 2016 Job Report by the United States Department of Labor.
Glomm said this is due to the manufacturing industry moving toward high skills employment with a focus on precision instruments and quality control.
Marsha Lovejoy, global manager of corporate content strategy at Cook Medical, said the company, employs 4,563 people in the Bloomington area.
Additionally, it has openings on the manufacturing side.
“It’s hard to find a stable career without high school equivalency,” Lovejoy said.
About 9,000 Monroe County residents do not currently have a high school degree, according to Stats Indiana.
To combat this, Cook has recently launched an education program.
This program allows employees to work part time and finish their high school degree, Lovejoy said.
Cook Medical will pay for an employee’s high school equivalency, she said.
If the employee obtains their GED and does well in the job at Cook, the employee will be hired for a full time position.
The U.S. created 151,000 jobs this month, and unemployment remained stagnant at 4.9 percent.
Though 255,000 jobs were created in July, these numbers are insignificant when it comes to studying long term growth, Glomm said.
In one month, 104,000 less jobs were reported, according to the Department of Labor.
However, comparing these numbers month to month can be difficult due to fluctuation, Glomm said.
“Looking at long-run trends would be much more important,” he said.
As time goes on it is important to study long-term employment trends to see where growth and decline is, Glomm said.
Going forward, Glomm said he thinks the country needs to ask itself how it will create jobs that allow people to have a family and live a good life.
“How are we going to prepare people to have jobs not just to have a job, but one that’s fulfilling and satisfying?” Glomm asked.
