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Manufacturers struggle to lure young workers
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Mike Leatherwood, president and owner of Leatherwood Electronics in North Charleston, needs to fill 10 job vacancies in his 45-employee company.
Locally, he cannot find the people to fill them. So he is forced to recruit nationally, placing job advertisements on monster.com and other such Web sites.
A lack of workers can mean a loss of potential business, Leatherwood said. Leatherwood Electronics has shied away from bidding on some contracts because Leatherwood felt he did not have enough employees for the job.
The problem is basically two-fold, according to Leatherwood. First, too many high school students who are not academically gifted are nevertheless being steered toward college rather than vocational school. Second, the work ethic among young people “stinks,” he said.
In terms of sheer numbers, the potential for a future manufacturing workforce exists in the Lowcountry, with more than 43,400 students enrolled in Charleston County public schools alone. Yet those numbers do little to comfort manufacturers.
“The pipeline of workers and youth is here,” said Jennifer DeWitt, program administrator for the Lowcountry Manufacturers Council. “However, that pipeline is not funneling toward manufacturing, industrial and other technical fields, which is a problem. Manufacturers are dealing with an aging workforce, and the younger workforce is not adequately replacing the older/existing workforce, nor do they have the needed skills to do so.”
Educational disconnect
“Our educators and school boards need to wake up, talk to businesses and find out what they need,” Leatherwood insisted.
Among those needs is for schools to do a better job of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, said Leatherwood.
Many in the region’s workforce lack adequate math and technical skills, added Cody Baker, manufacturing director for Charleston Marine Containers Inc. in North Charleston.
Manufacturers agree that public schools have largely ignored vocational training as a career alternative for many students.
“There needs to be a focus on educating and informing elementary to high schools students, as well as parents, teachers, educators and legislators, (that manufacturing) can be a very good career path for many,” DeWitt said.
Pursuing a four-year degree is not in the best interests of every high school student, and educators know early on if students are truly college material, Leatherwood said. He added that students taking the vocational rather than the baccalaureate route can still earn a good living, pointing out that annual salaries for electronics engineers often start at $40,000 to $50,000, while circuit board assemblers can begin at $12 to $15 an hour.
Sean McLernon, chief executive officer of North Charleston-based Stealth Concealment Solutions Inc., said the company has put a couple of its employees through college, but said it’s time for local manufacturers to get aggressive if they want to attract and train future employees.
“We need to go directly into the high schools and meet with the kids,” said McLernon. “We need to get in there and sell it.”
The “it” McLernon refers to is manufacturing as a possible career field. He admits it is a tough sell, largely because young people perceive manufacturing as a low-paying, grimy world of assembly lines, widget makers and grease-stained work clothes.
The Lowcountry Manufacturing Council is working more closely with school guidance counselors and School-to-Careers coordinators, as well as offering more job shadowing opportunities for students and worksite visits to introduce students to manufacturing, DeWitt said.
Plus, Trident Technical College continues to offer the “Manufacturing Summer Camp,” a free program for talented eighth-graders, she added.
Even though it is difficult competing with a popular culture where draftspersons, engineers, sales representatives and workers operating the latest in computer-controlled equipment are rarely, if ever, featured in movies and television shows, the manufacturing sector still must take the initiative to reach young people, McLernon said.
A way to do that is to offer students more apprenticeship programs to “bring them into the business,” he said.
Technical training
Lowcountry training programs abound for people seeking to upgrade their skills to attain higher-paying manufacturing jobs, DeWitt said. But not enough people—particularly the young and underemployed—are participating in them.
The Trident One-Stop Career Center, Trident Technical College and Trident Workforce Investment Board offer WorkKeys, a training program where individuals can improve their communication, problem-solving and interpersonal skills.
Job seekers participating in WorkKeys and showing improvements in job-skills scores usually indicate they have the kind of initiative and work ethic employers are looking for, said Paul Connerty, director of the Trident One-Stop Career Center.
The Manufacturers Certification Training Program, the Incumbent Workforce Training initiative, the Community Healthcare Training Program and courses in Trident Technical College’s Manufacturing, Industrial & Construction Trades program in the college’s Continuing Education division offer opportunities for job seekers to hone their skills.
Aside from math, language and other “hard” skills, “soft” skills such as the ability to get along with others are also largely lacking in the local workforce, as is a strong work ethic, according to manufacturers.
Getting employees simply to show up for work on time can be a challenge, DeWitt noted.
In addition, many young workers are put off by having to work several years before reaping financial rewards, preferring “instant gratification” instead, Cody added.
Local manufacturers are familiar with horror stories about young workers who have walked off the job after only a day—sometimes after only a few hours. Still, McLernon is optimistic the battle to lure young people into manufacturing can be won if manufacturers make a stronger effort to reach them.
Dennis Quick is the senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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