Are U.S. manufacturing jobs really dying? Its complicated
Susan Murray Carlock says her Indiana company is providing something popular opinion has deemed nearly extinct: well-paying manufacturing jobs. Over the last four years, Mursix Corporation, a creator of seat-belt buckles and bed frames, has sought to fill a variety of production positions. The average wages exceed $20 an hour — a ladder to the middle class.
Trouble is, she can’t find workers.
“We’ve been on a growth trajectory that is crazy,” said Carlock, whose family bought the firm for roughly $5 million in 1990 and has watched it grow into a $42 million business. “But we face serious labor force issues.”
The company needs skilled laborers, men and women who can absorb the “tribal knowledge” of the toolmakers before they retire, she said. This year, in an effort to draw talent, the firm set up an apprenticeship, paying promising employees as they learn the trade.
Carlock’s predicament isn’t isolated, even in the Rust Belt, where steadily vanishing manufacturing jobs became central to this year’s presidential election. She knows of at least two other plants in Muncie, Indiana, a college town in the state’s northeast quadrant, that face a similar hiring challenge.
“We’re all competing with each other for people,” she said. “To say manufacturing is dying in the United States just isn’t true.”
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http://www.heraldnet.com/business/are-u-s-manufacturing-jobs-really-dying-its-complicated/