Construction workers construct a building in downtown Miami, Florida, on June 14, 2023.
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At Ample’s Bay Area manufacturing facilities, employees work alongside robots on the ground, making battery packs and other parts for battery swapping technology for electric vehicles.
The job is clean, high-tech and skilled – all important hiring criteria as the company looks to expand its ranks in the coming year. The company hopes to double its 100-person manufacturing workforce by the end of the year.
Finding people who have the training to do these tasks can be challenging.
Ample works with brands from Daimler to Stellar To Above to replace empty electric car batteries with fully charged ones and quickly get electric cars back on the road. It expects business to see a boost as the U.S. works toward its renewable energy goals.
Ample is facing a problem that has plagued many manufacturers for years: the shortage of skilled workers. The company is looking for experienced employees to work with high-voltage machines and complex robotics. It is also Filling less qualified positions.
“I think it’s important to realize that as the machines become more sophisticated, manufacturing becomes more automated,” Ample CEO Khaled Hassounah told CNBC. “That means we expect a lot more from the people who manage the process, from the people who actually do the manufacturing, and of course that means that this work becomes a lot more demanding.”
The company takes matters into its own hands. Ample has educational partnerships with the City College of San Francisco, Laney College and the College of San Mateo that were created as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act.
These training programs give the company confidence that it can achieve its growth goals. He said some of the positions Ample is recruiting for do not require a college degree.
“We are aware that we can rely on community colleges to do this. You don’t have to go to college for two years to get started. But there are courses you can take that can really improve your skills for the job, really well, or even make it safe or more effective,” Hassounah said.
By expanding hiring, Ample is defying a decline in manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and around the world. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the sector added just 12,000 net jobs in 2023 for a variety of reasons, including auto worker strikes last fall.
The U.S. added 23,000 manufacturing jobs in January, but there were 601,000 openings in the industry in December, a three-month high, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year is expected to be challenging for the industry as the economic outlook is uncertain and companies struggle to find enough staff in a tighter labor market, according to an industry outlook from consulting firm Deloitte.
Companies that rely on blue-collar workers face the challenge of finding the right candidates as baby boomers retire and younger people have to choose between college and professional life. The Manufacturing Institute, an industry advocate, predicted in 2021 that about 4 million jobs in the industry will need to be filled by 2030, and more than 2 million jobs in the industry could remain unfilled by then if workers do not transition to advanced manufacturing Career.
“The biggest misconception about manufacturing is what modern manufacturing really looks like. People just don’t know,” said Carolyn Lee, president of the Manufacturing Institute. “They think it’s outdated or that you come in and just do one job. They don’t realize that modern manufacturing today is all about technology.”
The group is expanding its recruiting efforts to include workers of all demographics, backgrounds and ages, and is even starting to educate middle school kids about opportunities in the industry.
The construction industry is also faced with bottlenecks
More manufacturing jobs are expected to emerge in the coming years as funding from the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure agreement declines. But the growth will go beyond that.
Construction jobs have also increased, with the sector adding an average of 16,000 jobs per month in 2023. The number of manufacturing jobs in construction has also increased over the last year. Industry observers expect more to come.
“It’s going to be hundreds of billions of dollars in the next four to five years,” Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor and government affairs at the trade group Associated Builders and Contractors, said of federal funds tied to construction and manufacturing projects. “And that’s going to have a big impact on the skills shortage and the shortage that we’re facing right now.”
The construction industry will need to hire an estimated 501,000 additional workers in 2024 on top of the normal hiring pace to meet labor demand, according to a proprietary model developed by the trade group.
Smaller employers are probably feeling the personnel crisis in the skilled trades more strongly. The National Federation of Independent Business reported that labor quality ranked just behind inflation among the top three concerns for small business owners in December.
Thirty-three percent of all small business owners surveyed had job openings for skilled workers, and the group said hiring challenges were greatest in the construction and transportation sectors.
To ease hiring problems, companies are sometimes looking to hire younger workers and train them to work in manufacturing and construction. This is something even high schools do in a unique way.
At South San Francisco High School, a course designed as a traditional woodshop elective was converted into a two-year construction trades course.
“It actually went from building a birdhouse to learning how to shape the walls and roofs of buildings. “So it was really just about understanding what students need to be competitive in the work environment,” said Jason Brockmeyer, director of innovation, outreach and special projects at the South San Francisco High School District. “And what can we do to help them get there? We’re really focused on making sure students are prepared not only for college but for careers.”
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2024-02-02 18:19:33
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