US factories struggle to fill 400,000 open jobs
President Donald Trump's pledge to revive American manufacturing is running into the stubborn obstacle of demographic reality.
The pool of blue-collar workers who are able and willing to perform tasks on a factory floor in the United States is shrinking.
As baby boomers retire, few young people are lining up to take their place.
About 400,000 manufacturing jobs are currently unfilled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics - a shortfall that will surely grow if companies are forced to rely less on manufacturing overseas and build more factories in the United States, experts say.
Difficulty attracting and retaining a quality workforce has been consistently cited as a "top primary challenge" by US manufacturers since 2017, said Victoria Bloom, the chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers, which produces a quarterly survey.
The hiring challenges faced by US factories are multifaceted. The president's crackdown on immigration, which includes attempts to revoke deportation protections for migrants from troubled countries, may eliminate workers who could have filled those jobs.
Many Americans aren't interested in factory jobs because they often do not pay enough to lure workers away from service jobs that may have more flexible schedules or comfortable working environments.
For some companies, remaining globally competitive involves the use of sophisticated equipment that requires employees to have extensive training and familiarity with software. And employers cannot simply hire people right out of high school without providing specialised training to bring them up to speed. That wasn't the case in the heyday of American manufacturing.
Attracting motivated young people to manufacturing careers is also a challenge when high school guidance counselors are still judged by how many students go on to college.
College graduates, on the other hand, often do not have the right skills to be successful on a factory floor.
Trump's aggressive cuts to training programmes for blue-collar workers have also hurt efforts to train a new generation of factory workers. The administration has taken steps to eliminate the Job Corps, a 60-year-old programme that provides at-risk youths from 16 to 24 with a path to a career in the trades.nyt
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