Jobs Employers Can't Fill

Status
Not open for further replies.
It's just SAD Roy. I may loose my Moderator status for saying this, but I can't not say it for the common good of our country! I my self was one of those kids that had no business going to college, even though I did. I never could have made it tough High School with out Shop Classes. I grew up in WEST TEXAS, where Vocational Agriculture is a 2 year Requirement for Graduation. I can honestly say I learned more about LIFE in VocAg class then the whole rest of my 16 year Liberal indoctrination! I learned How to get up at a working man hour, Take care of my Responsibilities (animals). Shower, Shave, and Dress appropriate for my Day. I also learned wood working, Mechanics, cooking, I even learned the proper way to Shave in front of the whole Class on a day when I didn't shave! and where we screwed up is we've become such a molly coddling society where everyone's a winner, and little johnny is "SPECIAL" that kids can't and won't Make or Do ANYTHING. They just built a NEW High School down the street that has 2 Olympic Swimming Pools, A Football Stadium that rivals SMU's with a TV STUDIO, But NO Industrial Arts No shop. so as much as telling little Johnny if you're not a Jock, or College bound You're going to be a Failure. and Guess what the kid that want's to grow up to be a productive MAN is just screwed! and now that we are building a Welfare state it's ok the state will feed you no effort required
 
I think that taking a step and starting your own business is something everyone should try at least once. in my case trice... You gain a great appreciation for those that have. But I do think that in order to make a living at anything and be secure in it you have to make yourself the best at what you do... or at least narrow your customer list to those that appreciate your abilities. If you just do a lousey job then you shouldn't even start a business. If you can't handle loosing money for the first year then its best you don't start. I've seen to many people think they can make a profit straight out of the door and that happen so rarely that I don't recommend it. The only way I was able to start a business the first time was I'd saved my money and the business I was working for decided to shut our division down... so I asked for the client list and their blessing and did really well for the first 6 years. Until the bottom dropped out. You can get wiped out pretty fast if your too big and the well dries up. But I wouldn't stop anyone from going after their dream.

Those that make millions are the ones that do what no one else will do or do what others are afraid to do.
 
For years before I retired I told everyone that would listen that the day would come when there would be a major shortage of skilled workers. I was on advisory boards of two different school districts and a regional board that decided what should be taught in public schools. No one really wanted to hear what I was saying because it would cost them money.
Years ago when children when to high school, guidance counselors’ would evaluate whether they should stay on an academic path or go to trade school. But the bean counters got involved and decided that they needed to stop this practice because the vocational schools were run by a different district and the tax dollars would go that district when the student transferred. So the number of students in the trade schools dried up and they shut down the shop classes. I taught night school machine shop classes in the St. Louis area for ten years and saw this happen first hand. At the school I taught at when I started there were four fully equipped machine shop classrooms. As the daytime student numbers dwindled they started closing classrooms and selling off equipment. When I stopped teaching there was only one shop left and it was used only for the nighttime program. There were three of these schools in the district and they all went thru the same process. The last I heard there was only one classroom in whole district left.
At the same time as these things were going on business owners less and less wanted to hire and train employees. You can see that still in the help wanted ads. They all say X number of years experience required.

I have heard of one change on this recently. There is a shop in Peoria, IL that had to start their own school last year to train new hires because they had more than 50 job openings they couldn't fill.
 
Frankly, I think this is the tip of the iceberg. We in the industry have seen and forecast this for yeas now. And finally, it is coming to roost with upper management when they can't make money because of a labor shortage they can't deal with. Pity no one listened. We (some of the larger shops) in this area tried to team up with a local JC and offered internships, but there was little interest, and only a couple of people were hired. Neither stayed with it long enough to become journeymen. The vocational classes offered here in high school are limited to FAA oriented classes. Sure, they learn to weld....enough to make a hay ring or something useful on the ranch. But that's a far cry from modern manufacturing. I personally believe this was steered by finance rather than politics. At one time, it was thought that colleges would need to turn out X percent grad students for X number of positions that were predicted to be created. So they were wrong. And now the manufacturing sector is suffering just when it needs all the help it can get. So at the time, HS counselors were steering people more towards academic and tech sector educations. Probably seemed like the thing to do....at the time. Or perhaps the colleges were guiding the guidance counselors? Probably.
 
Tony, I think that some of that is just endemic to the "educational" system. All the teachers went to "college" (quotes because I've seen some of their coursework and I would consider grade school stuff), all the administrator, and all the counselors went to college. They don't know anything else so that's all they can recommend to the kids whether it is the correct path for them or not. I suppose that some parents carry some of the blame in that equation as well. Consider this, Johny (with the IQ of a potato) comes home and tells his helicopter parents that the school counselor suggested that Johny really wasn't college material. The parents fly off the handle, "How dare you tell our little boy he isn't smart!"....

Without trying to get "political", we have a president who has said, I paraphrase, that "all kids should be going to college". It's that myopic and somewhat utopian attitude that has led us down this path.

-Ron
 
Recently I read somewhere about the number of graduating students from colleges comparing China to the USA. In China a college turns out 200 students, most have engineering degrees and in the USA, we turn out 200 students, all with law degrees. Where we used to place emphasis on engineering skills and mechanical knowledge that allowed for life time careers that one could retire from, we now subsitude this mindset with "let's just find someone with more money than I, that I can sue for some frivilous reason" and wind up with a huge settlement. Liability lawyers have cost each of us, a case in point would be the light aircraft industry. In 1979 I bought a brand new Cessna for less than 20 grand, today the comparable machine goes for nearly 450 grand. Years ago it was not uncommon for a person to spend 30 -35 or greater plus years at a company before retiring and in places there were 2 or 3 generations of families that worked for the same company. Nowadays this is rare, if not unheard of! Heck, If you stay 3 or 4 years someplace nowadays, it is considered a long time.

We now place such an emphasis on college degrees, it has saturated the educational system and 4 years in college to me now means 4 years less experience than those that worked in their field from day one and learned from the school of hard knocks. My Dad retired in the mid 80's as a registered professional engineer with only an 8th grade education. You have to remember that years ago it was rare for most to finish 6th grade and then cupple that with 2 years of trade school, well it mean't something way back when. Dad told me his most frustrating moments were the fact that he'd have to train some snot nose with a "degree" for six months that didn't even know dirt from shine'nola, that started at the same salary as him after his 30 year tenure, and then he would be promoted and become his new boss. Our educational system has dummied down it's criteria in order to receive a more uniform rating so that they can receive their "fair" share of tax dollars. There is no more readin, writin and rithmatic. It's all about budgets and funding and dollars, kinda like wormin cattle, the more you get thru the chutes, the more BS there is on the ground!

Just wait, it will become way gloomier before it gets brighter. I still say a person should learn all they can and do all they can, common task wise, no matter what their career set is. A good example for me is my son-in-law, his career is as a cardiologist and the boy cannot even check the air pressure in his car's tires, but on the otherhand his wife (my daughter) can change the oil in their cars, replumb the kitchen sink and even weld if she has too!

I'll stop for now before I go too far, sorry for rambling folks!
 
Last edited:
Let's face it. Being a machinist isn't glamorous. To the lay person a machinist is a glorified mechanic (including management).

Unfortunately, machinists are underpaid and under appreciated. It is NOT an easy skill to become proficient at but the salaries simply don't reflect that. I learned that much honing my HSM skills. The more I learn, the more I appreciate the level of knowledge the machinists here at work possess. They regularly work to tenths, but the machinists pulling it off have the most decrepit cars in our parking lot.

Hmmm... Trying to do quality work to thousanths, figuring out how to get that lump of billet to match that print with what tools you've got, while sweating your butt off in a un-airconditioned shop to get it done on time, while being paid disproportionately to your skill level. Does that describe being a machinist?

Heck, I rather be an electrician. Much less to know and much higher pay.

All the really good machinists I know work as Manufacturing Engineers and rarely touch a machine.

In short: train 'em right outta school, pay 'em and they'll beat a path to your door....

John
 
Top hands around here can go as high as $30+ in the good times, with lots of OT, so their take-home pay is pretty good. And not all the shops are un-air conditioned. Lots of the smaller ones are, but in the oilfield, it's always said, when it's good, it's great! But when it's bad......it's baaaaad. Feast or famine. And layoffs come with no warnings at times. I've seen trucks pull up from the customer and force the work off the machines AT THE MOMENT, finished or not. They were cutting costs with urgency. But then, when the hiring picks back up, if you have a job and are approached by a recruiter, they don't always want you to give notice. I think they're afraid that, given a couple of weeks, your current employer just might sweeten the pot enough to keep you. Of course, there is the age thing too. I keep hearing that if you're over 50 you can't find a job. Not so in machining around here. As long as you can do the work, you can get the work. I think that may apply in situations where significant investment in training time and cost (and yep, it does cost your employer to train you, even if you are skilled) makes it look wrong on paper, given that you may want to retire at 65....if you're late 50's, that only represents 6-8 years of service, part of which is training. But of you're good, that doesn't matter so much. That applies more to "machine operators" than machinists. There is a great deal of difference.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top