Industry Insights: Manufacturing

Industry Insights | February 21, 2022 | 3 minutes read

Welcome to our resource page for Manufacturing Hiring!

We built this page with you in mind – use it as a learning tool, reference page, and more!

This page is set up to give you the latest information on what’s happening in the hiring market right now, as well as the trends manufacturing businesses, are facing when it comes to hiring. We have compiled the latest stats, arming you with all the data you need to make informed decisions when looking at your hiring plan.

Manufacturing growth slowed to a 19-month low in January 2022, while demand for manufacturing goods remained high. With the manufacturing sector still over 200,000 workers shy of where it was before the pandemic, the pandemic is having an impact on the labor force. Millions of the country’s factory workers who simply do not have the luxury of being able to miss a paycheck. Low-income Americans who are most likely to work exhausting and demanding jobs often have no other option. Clearly America’s frontline workers don’t have a social safety net that can deal with these issues.

The Secret Behind How to Meet and Exceed Workforce Demands

Download American Workers in Crisis to see how to change workers’ lives while dramatically improving business performance.

What Worked In The Past Is No Longer Working

$77,500 is the average yearly frontline manufacturing salary.
However, pay alone isn’t enough to make the manufacturing sector the worker magnet it was decades ago. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find and hire sufficiently skilled workers that don’t require significant amounts of training and education to simply get started.
Nearly one-fourth of the manufacturing workforce is age 55 or older, a demographic reality that signals a labor shortage for the nation’s fifth-largest employer
2.6M Baby Boomers working in the manufacturing industry will retire in the next decade, creating a large void and a concerning labor shortage.

HR Challenges in Manufacturing

Accounting for 11.7 million jobs in America alone, it is incumbent upon HR to properly identify the challenges that currently exist and fully utilize the sector’s tremendous potential and importance. Properly understanding these challenges is imperative before diving into potential solutions.

Workforce Shortages
Recruitment Challenges
Retention and Attrition
Low Employee Engagement
Global Competition
Training and Development

In order to pivot its workforce to attract workers to the industry, manufacturers both from discrete and industry must vastly improve its ability to create and foster engaging work environments. At an estimated 25% employment engagement level, the sector trails the national average by a full 8%.

MANUFACTURING FACT

The average age of today’s skilled worker is 56.

Tips For HR Practitioners in Manufacturing

The impact of staffing shortages is being felt across every facet of the senior care industry. And with competition for talent shifting so dramatically outside the industry, providers must do more to retain the staff they have, develop inclusive environments, and make the industry more attractive to the non- traditional workforce, such as students, retirees and gig economy workers.

Tap into local high schools and colleges to get the word out about manufacturing careers; open the factory to tours.

Communicate with local educators about what skills are needed from future graduates.

Change job descriptions to focus less on a job candidate’s past positions and more on what’s really needed to do the job.

Recruit populations underrepresented in manufacturing, such as women and veterans.

Beef up apprenticeship programs.

Automate jobs that are going unfilled.

Pandemic Upends Manufacturing

The coronavirus sent shock waves through the world economy and manufacturing. In March, the sector experienced the largest monthly decrease in output since 1946, and the downturn left companies on uncertain ground.

Sources: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (April 2020) and the National Association of Manufacturers (March 2020).

The Big Picture

Manufacturing companies can offer a range of employee benefits to stay competitive—flexible hours and scheduling, competitive pay and training, to name a few.

HR leaders need to understand the tech road map for their organizations and then update job descriptions and staffing plans to get where they want to go.
Performance management systems will need to move from objective measurements to value-based assessments.
Career-progression planning will be tailored to lower-level workers, and many employees will move laterally within an organization in order to learn a broad set of skills.
It’s critical for companies to be more creative when it comes to hiring. NAM’s Heroes Make America initiative is designed to help veterans transition into manufacturing jobs.
Keeping pay levels competitive is another important retention tactic.

We’re leading-edge. It’s not your grandfather’s manufacturing.

- Director of Marketing, Hatch Stamping, Suzanne Morrison