By Dr. Paul Pierpoint, Dean, Community Education

Young Americans are not choosing manufacturing as a career option at a moment in history when we are most in need of new manufacturing workers. And there seems to be very little anyone can do to change that.

This issue of Performance News like earlier issues emphasizes sustainability as a driving value for American manufacturing. But in the long run, all of the best sustainability practices in the world will be for naught if we lose the nation's supply of skills and knowledge necessary to keep the machines rolling.

Young people do not want to go into manufacturing. But young people are not the only hope for developing the future manufacturing workforce. There is another group of potential workers - large and growing faster than any other segment of the population – who are willing and eager to work in manufacturing. Like young people they generally lack the skills and knowledge required in modern manufacturing but unlike many young people, they have work ethics that drive them to want to learn and to work.

I am referring, of course, to our large immigrant population. I know first hand from my experiences at NCC where I see hundreds of recent immigrants come each day to learn English and gain basic skills that their drive to succeed is keen. The people I see every day came to this country to work. And they are ready to work hard. But they need time and opportunity to develop the skills they need.

Many employers have told me, “Give me a worker who is motivated and responsible and I will train them in the skills they need for the job.” But the reality of the modern manufacturing workplace does not allow employers or employees the time to learn what needs to be learned unless learning is integrated into the work itself. Workers need to be able to produce and learn at the same time. They need to have opportunities to learn from the experienced coworkers who know the technical details and idiosyncrasies of the specific equipment they are using but they also need to develop the theoretical understanding of the technology and processes that will allow them to learn and adapt to nearly continual change. The first learning can only happen on the job. The second is better done in more formal educational settings.

There is nothing new here. I am talking about apprenticeships. I am talking about a long-term, shared commitment between employer, employee, and education provider to produce a steady supply of workers with increasing skills and knowledge. Unlike other resources necessary for business, manufacturing workers cannot be bought from suppliers ready-to-go. They need to be invested in. They need to be developed over years.

The added challenge with my proposal is the need to include English as a Second language as part of the training program. Even more than technical skill development, language skill development is a long-term process. Most experts say even an exceptional adult learner has difficulty becoming fluent in English in less than seven years.

How many employers are willing to make that long term commitment? How many are willing to invest in a program of continual learning (with concomitant wage increases) over a period of years to ensure the kind of workers they need to compete? In the US, there may not be many but elsewhere around the world this is standard operating procedure.

As long as training and development are seen as “nice to do” investments when time and money allow, there is little to be optimistic about in terms of a sustaining manufacturing workforce. But for companies that integrate training and development with the core purposes of their operations, companies that consider developing the skills of their workers to be as important as designing and developing new products, there is more than reason to hope. There is reason to celebrate because they will be positioned to compete globally for another generation or more.

I find it ironic that as America outsources to countries around the world, the immigrant still comes to our shores in record numbers, seeking a better life. It's up to us to show them the American way.

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