2018cnc4-5.2

CNC WEST April/May 2018 www.CNC-West.com 55 teaching. Lastly, how involved are we (people in the trade) with our local programs? I think we are failing to be involved enough with our local programs. T hird challenge: A clear path to enter and grow within the trade. This is where I think we as an industry are failing the most. On one hand I feel extremely fortunate that experienced machinists are in high demand, but how do people get experience? I recently did a job search for CNC Machinist in my area. It was nice to see that there were pages of open- ings. But, most openings listed five years of experi- ence required. Looking back on the few people that asked me for guidance to get into our industry they all said it looks like a great place for someone who already has experience but not for someone new to the industry. Are our shops too busy to train people? to be filled over the next decade. If their predictions are correct over 2 million of those jobs will go unfilled due to the skills gap. Unfortunately, I think we are failing as an industry to make significant strides to fix the problem holistically. I see a lot of smart people doing a lot of good things. But, I don’t see a lot of dots being connected from inspiring, to training, to real world jobs. So, let me break down each issue as I see it. Maybe we as an industry can own and fix our own problems… F irst challenge: Drive people to our industry as a career. This is a big and systemic problem that starts with parents and their young kids and it carries over through school and well beyond. There is a lot of data that shows kids categorize themselves by the time they get to 3rd grade. They put themselves in categories of being good or bad at school, tackling challenges, athletics etc. I truly believe that most humans are happiest when they use both their minds and their hands to create and fix things. I clearly see this with my ten-year-old daughter and other young people around me. I have no doubt that if our children were exposed more to fixing and making things when they were young that our CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs would see more students that were serious about exploring careers in manufactur- ing. I do feel like our states and education systems are starting to see the value in offering CTE programs, but we need more good candidates entering the pro- grams. I’ve heard guestimates as low as 1-3% of CTE students have a real chance at pursuing a career in manufacturing. S econd challenge: A path to learning the trade. I see well-funded and well-run school programs and I see poorly funded and poorly run school programs from the High School level through the four-year Colleges. I also see private companies offering terrible training where profit is clearly their focus while others appear to be doing good work. My biggest concern is the content and curriculum being so jumbled and often disconnected from the realities of our industry. I mean no disrespect to anyone in the field of training people in our trade. I believe this is also a systematic problem that often starts with how our school programs are funded. How our school systems set requirements for teachers that often exclude the most passionate, knowledgeable and talented people in the trade from Are they worried about training someone to only lose them to another shop at a higher wage? Knowing what many “experienced” machinists are making, it seems clear that many shops are driving wages up by finding employees from other shops by paying them higher wages. I know it’s basic supply and demand, but can we change it? A s with most things in life, there is no one silver bullet solution. I think as an industry, we should be more holistically involved from the beginning to the end. The one thing I am certain of, is that we have a small window to make changes to fix the problem before the skills gap becomes our biggest competitive liability.