Low jobless rate doesn't produce workers

Employer 'can't find people to fill' a bunch of

high-skilled jobs

By Richard Ryman February 21, 2010

Unemployment is 7.3 percent in Brown County, but Paul Rauscher can't find workers. Rauscher is president of EMT International, a manufacturing company in Northeastern Green Bay.

"We have a bunch of high-skilled jobs open, and we can't find people to fill them," Rauscher said. "We

added 20 jobs last year. I'm fortunate the economy was down. I'm afraid we would have stalled the

company because we couldn't get the people."

There are a lot of myths and some half-understood truths about manufacturing in Wisconsin.

It is true the state lost more than 150,000 manufacturing jobs since 1998, according to the U.

S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It also is true that manufacturing is still a significant part of the state's

economy. More significant than in any other state, in fact. Wisconsin has the highest percentage of

manufacturing jobs, 15.6 percent, edging out longtime leader Indiana's 15.4 percent.

That's 8 percent fewer manufacturing jobs than two years ago, a direct result of the recession. But of all

the jobs lost in the past decade, many were of the kind that are responsible for the myth of manufacturing being mindless, repetitive, dirty work.

"The manufacturing jobs that left are the low-skilled jobs," said Mark Weber, dean of the Trades and

Technical program at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay. "In the last 20 years, that was the big transition. It went away from being that dingy, dark manufacturing environment. I think

most of the public has not caught up to that. There's very few of those kind of manufacturing jobs left."

The surviving manufacturers provide an entirely different environment. They place a premium on cleanliness and safety, and workers are required to be problem solvers with strong math and science

skills.

"You need to learn geometry skills and a lot of math. You need to be able to take fractions to decimals

and decimals to fractions, add and subtract fractions and decimals," said Matt Busch, a welder

with Fox Valley Metal Tech in Ashwaubenon.

Mike Maciejewski, maintenance leader at Georgia-Pacific's Broadway mill in Green Bay, said that

company's Market-Based Management process encourages employees to think like owners and

entrepreneurs. "It will be expected. It's not enough to just come in. You are not a robot," he said.

According to the American Small Manufacturers Coalition, manufacturing employs 13 million

Americans, accounts for roughly two-thirds of U.S. research and development expenditures and

employs more engineers and scientists than any other private sector industry.

The world market for manufactured goods is increasing at 10 percent-11 percent per year while

the U.S. demand for manufactured goods is increasing at 3 percent-5 percent per year.

The fear among manufacturers is that they won't have the people they need to keep up.

"My fear is, we have a potential talent gap up and down the line in manufacturing," said Mike

Klonsinski, executive director of the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership. "Everything

from stereotypical manufacturing jobs such as welders and CNC operators — and we're short of

them now — but we also have potential technical gaps for researchers. In the next five years, 20

percent to half of manufacturing leadership will be turned over."

Klonsinski and Rauscher are hopeful that efforts by manufacturing organizations such as WMEP and the

NEW Manufacturing Alliance will change minds about manufacturing.

"I'm hoping the high schools are getting the message. We haven't given up on that one bit," Rauscher said.