As baby boomer engineers retire from manufacturing, younger generations aren’t rushing in to fill their shoes. Rapidly changing technology has created greater demand for new skills among shrinking pools of talent, just as reshoring efforts promise to make domestic manufacturing even more robust.
This is why the field’s well-documented skills gap will only widen.
For 10 consecutive quarters, the biggest challenge faced by manufacturers of all sizes —and in all sectors—was their inability to hire enough skilled workers, according to the National Association of Manufacturers’ Quarterly Outlook Survey. Even with the massive shift in unemployment due to COVID-19, the skills gap remains, says Carolyn Lee, executive director, The Manufacturing Institute.