Study: Manufacturing Industry Faces Unprecedented Employment Shortfall
2.4 million skilled jobs projected to go unfilled according to Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute
WASHINGTON — As growth in the U.S. economy continues and manufacturers create more and more jobs in a thriving sector, the industry's pre-existing workforce crisis could get even worse, according to a new 2018 skills gap study, released today by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute—the social impact arm of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).
The widening manufacturing skills gap is expected to grow from about 488,000 jobs left open today to as many as 2.4 million manufacturing jobs going unfilled between this year and 2028 (compared with 2 million jobs between 2015 and 2025 per our earlier study). In turn, $454 billion in manufacturing GDP could be at risk in 2028, or more than $2.5 trillion over the next decade.