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Robot growing pains: Two U.S. factories show tensions of going digital
President Donald Trump has put bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States at the center of his economic and trade agenda. But when jobs actually come - as they have here in southern Indiana - many factory workers are not prepared for them, and employers are having trouble hiring people with the needed skills.
U.S. manufacturing job openings stand near a 15 year high and factories are hiring workers at the fastest clip since 2014, with many employers saying the hardest-to-fill jobs are those that involve technical skills that command top pay.
In 2000, over half of U.S. manufacturing workers had only high school degrees or less, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Today, 57 percent of manufacturing workers have technical school training, some college or full college degrees, and nearly a third of workers have bachelors or advanced degrees, up from 22 percent in 2000.
Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the digitalization sweeping the economy is forcing employers to hunt for a different mix of workers - and pay more in some cases for workers with technical skills. A new study by Muro found those with the highest digital skills saw average wage growth of 2 percent a year since 2010, while wages for those with medium skills grew by 1.4 percent and those at the bottom by 1.6 percent.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:35AM (8 children)
My employer likes technical skills and technical training. So, what do they hire? I see a lot of people who have gone to the community college, or a vo-tech, to get some kind of certificate. You might think that these people are motivated, or bright, or just hard working. That is not the case - at least not all the time.
One guy was one of those smooth talkers, who got in tight with the plant manager - they know a lot of the same people, blah blah blah. Dude has a temper, threatened physical violence to almost a dozen different people over his 3 or 4 year stay. I looked him up once, he has an arrest record for violence, including a drunken assault on two barmaids and three cops. (that's just one instance, there are more)
Another guy is going to classes, but doesn't learn a damned thing. Dumb as any rock - happily puts self tapping screws into metric or SAE bolt holes, because he loses bolts, then is to lazy to go get new bolts that fit the holes. He's a welder, who blows inch and a half holes into plates where he plans on using 1/2" bolts. Dumber than a rock.
Another prima donna calls himself a safety officer. Got in trouble because he spent about three weeks doing NOTHING. Sat in his little office playing video games, and browsing social networks. After a royal ass chewing, he runs in circles, trying to do something conspicuous enough to get his boss off his ass. It was something like a Laurel and Hardy show.
Meanwhile - there are hard working people on the production floor who deserve to be promoted, because they actually get shit done. They understand their jobs, as well as the jobs around them. Many of those people can go to ANY work station in the plant, and do work ranging from very good, to excellent. Hell, I can't even do that! But, the working stiff doesn't get a break - the halfwits still go online, and use recruiting services to fill all the high paying jobs.
Yeah, I realize they have quotas to fill. Gotta have a black, a female, whatever, but WE HAVE ALL OF THAT ON THE PRODUCTION FLOOR!!
I could go on all day about mismanagement in manufacturing. If management won't use the people and the skills they have at hand, then, yeah, there is some kind of artificial "shortage". Fact is, there is no shortage.
This is precisely the same deal we've all discussed regarding the H1B and other programs. It's all smoke and mirrors, all being used to keep wages down. You specify a very specific education and/or technical skills set, which you know damned near no one has, then you can import your labor from anywhere in the world. People from backwoods villages where no one has hard currency will slave away 20 hours, 7 days a week, if you give them a few bucks every week, and let them send a couple dollars home to their families.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:47AM (6 children)
I almost missed this:
What does that tell any rational person? Well, it tells me that the position is unnecessary. SOMEONE is already doing the work that this missing person is not doing. The work is being done, and the plant is producing. So - you find out who the hell is actually doing that job right now, and you PROMOTE THAT PERSON INTO THE POSITION!!! There's no real recruiting necessary. Give that individual a raise, redefine his/her job as necessary, and get on with life.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:17PM
Thanks, your observations match my observations of the world. Though you do get a mix at the good ole Community College. Some people are truly great, just have too much brains to splurge $50K a year. And of course lot of people at CC should never be in college, but what you gonna do? Too many liberals around for you to tell people they are wasting their time, and should work on their flipping skills instead. Some of the "rational" I heard out of the liberals was just insane, and meanwhile I see the same fucking dumbass semester after semester and he is taking the same class, and someone tells me he has been taking that class for 5 years. But a liberal will tell you "he only has to pass once."
(Score: 4, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Thursday December 28 2017, @02:40PM (3 children)
<sarcasm>
Woah there friend. You can't go around putting lowly plebs in positions reserved for the friends and family of management.
</sarcasm>
Seriously though, I bet a lot of it has to do with elitism. For example : my boss enforces a dress code which includes a company provided black shirt with logo. Not a big deal, your shop, your rules, so long as you provide the shirt and free replacements. But what gets me is the jerk has the same shirt but in red. So you have a shop full of men and women walking around in black shirts and here comes mr red shirt. So when customers visit, everyone to knows who's a pleb and who's the boss. Like identifying the queen bee in a colony. Then he tells the shipping and facilities manager, who has his own office, he can't listen to music during work hours and then goes back to his office and puts music on his bluetooth speaker as if saying "I'm the boss, bitch."
And I'm sure there are those who won't promote because they don't like the person for whatever reason, even if they are PERFECT for the job. Maybe the person has a funny walk, bald, bad teeth/breath, listens to michael bolton, brown/black, speaks a certain way (accent/lisp/dialect), cubs fan, woman, etc.
I would also assume some people don't want to see the common man get ahead. "You want to promote WHO! That guy is 30 going on 50, bald, wears flannel shirts and can barely afford a Honda. I bet the man never owned a suit in his whole life or sat in a Mercedes. No. We need someone cut from a better mold. How about my golfing buddies son, went to my old frat house Alpha beta gamma and drives a Porsche his father bought for him. He looks like a good fit. Or that brunet with the huge rack that came in for an interview, what was she interviewing for again? Doesn't matter. The tits on that one I tell ya.... have HR give her a call and tell her she has the job."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @03:48PM (1 child)
hey it's almost like I worked for your place. my boss also was into red shirts. wanted everyone to syncronize their outfits so that he could stand out as the boss.
but that happened because a suborinate wore something nice one day and acted educated and polite...and the potential customer thought the wrong person was in charge.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday December 28 2017, @04:43PM
Ah yes. Egos. I was giving a presentation the other day at the companies weekly manager meeting when the sales manager, yup, the fucking sales manager, interrupted me to try and argue technical semantics of which he has no authority on. He was feeling dumb and had to put an end to it. Can't have one of the plebs upstage me. Thankfully that was yet another strike against his two-faced entitled "I'm the owners cousin with the same prestigious family surname" bullshit that the new director of operations is mounting against that prick.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 28 2017, @04:15PM
And I'm sure there are those who won't promote because they don't like the person for whatever reason, even if they are PERFECT for the job. Maybe the person has a funny walk, bald, bad teeth/breath, listens to michael bolton, brown/black, speaks a certain way (accent/lisp/dialect), cubs fan, woman, etc.
While most of these are indeed horrible reasons to not promote someone, they're correct to deny promotions to anyone who listens to Michael Bolton. That's just unforgivable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @04:06PM
Then the person's former peers would refuse to work with him because they are bitter they didn't get the promotion. Better to just hire a windbag from outside the company to manage that person and his peers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by leftover on Thursday December 28 2017, @06:45PM
IMHO, this is a direct consequence of malformed teachings by American business schools. BA majors for the last 50 years have been indoctrinated with concepts such as the "cost center"* and the even more idiotic delusion that egomaniacs screaming in a trading pit actually create all value. Everything else is to be 'exploited' and refusing to be responsible for one's own messes is sugar-coated as 'the tragedy of the commons', as if that is some kind of unavoidable natural law.
Since manufacturing, engineering, maintenance, safety, etc. are all 'cost centers' they are to be ruthlessly minimized. According to the dogma, their labor creates no value so why would the company invest in training them? All workers are interchangeable so just burn them out and replace with the cheapest fodder available. Oddly, the labor of the finance department always warrants extravagant compensation. (/sarc)
* Often wrongly attributed to Drucker, who hated this bastardization of his profit center concept.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.