The gradual degradation of vocational education at the secondary school level in the United States has resulted in a severe shortage of skilled manufacturing workers. Where traditional and vocational high schools once graduated job-ready 18-year-olds with the skillsets and training to enter the workforce, vocational training has increasingly been farmed out to for-profit post-secondary educational companies. Many vocational programs have also been shuttered in favor of preparing students for traditional four-year colleges.
Research by the Boston Consulting Group estimates that the U.S. has a labor shortage of about 80,000 to 100,000 skilled manufacturing workers. This analysis does not blunt group’s contention that the U.S. is on track for a manufacturing renaissance within the next decade. However, it also highlights the need for new blood in a sector where the average worker is now eligible for membership in the AARP. Machinists, welders, industrial machinery mechanics and industrial engineers are aging out and as such, these industries are losing their most skilled and experienced members while lacking young and well-trained replacements.
When one takes into account that skilled manufacturing trades have far fewer workers over age 65 than the total labor force overall, it brings home the crucial differences in the manufacturing trades versus the typical white-collar worker. Very simply, physically demanding jobs mean that many skilled workers can’t hold off retirement just because they don’t want to quit. At some point, their bodies simply cannot sustain the efforts required. Stagnant wages have not helped to pull in a younger generation frequently burdened by student debt. According to Forbes, skilled trades took a hard but not critical hit during the recession, declining 13 percent from 2007 to 2009. Yet from 2010 to 2012, employment in those very same trades has expanded by over 6 percent; wages have, however, remained flat.
Changing the educational focus to include skilled trades and other vocations as attractive career choices will be critical if the U.S. is to sustain the “reshoring” of manufacturing and industry. While not everyone is suited to vocational programs, not all students are best served by four-year colleges. According to America’s Promise, dropout rates, though rising, continue to be grim.
- 20 percent of freshman students will not graduate high school.
- 25 percent of African-American students and 20 percent of Hispanic students attend high schools where graduating is not the norm.
- Factors of race, income, disabilities, and English proficiency cause graduation gaps even within homogenous populations.
With dropout rates continuing to rise, the need to engage students in programs that interest and enrich their lives is vital in order to raise families out of poverty, broaden the tax base, shut off the school to prison pipeline and revive an American dream that for so many has seemed out of reach for so long. In communities hit hardest by the downturn in manufacturing positions, poverty has become endemic in just two or three generations. Life expectancies are shorter, while criminal behavior and the need for social services has increased. Loss of hope has cost more in terms of wasted potential than anyone ever expected. High school diplomas make a difference, not only communities and society as a whole, but to the individuals who earn them.
“Made in America” can be something to be proud of once again. If the industries and education systems can work together, they can bring about a revival—and not just in trade and commerce, but in communities and individuals. By investing in education, we can make an entire generation believe that they are worth investing in and at the same time, begin a renaissance of our neglected communities.