May 5, 2019 7 min read

Katie Hager knows manufacturing. She is the workforce development manager for Charleroi-based DMI Cos., a components manufacturer for the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning industry.

Technology has changed manufacturing, she said, but agreed with the general perception that this once-stagnant industry not only is experiencing a revival, it is percolating.

“Manufacturing is going strong,” said Hager, whose company has five facilities in four states, the largest being in Forward Township. “We’ve seen a lot of growth. It’s a good economy nationally, and companies are making a lot of investment in people and infrastructure.

“Twenty percent of the (world’s) manufactured goods are from the U.S. That’s a lot of stuff.”

“If you look on the PA Careerlink website, you see a lot of job orders for manufacturing,” said Lisa Neil, president of Southwest Training Services, an employment agency in Washington.

Ron Davis, president of the Washington County Manufacturers Association and director of inside sales at Accutrex Products in Southpointe, said: “Speaking for the association, I’d say we see it as picking up. We see activity out there, and various manufacturing groups say they are busy.”

The consensus among executives and workforce officials interviewed for this article parallels those views, that the manufacturing arrow is pointing upward – in the tri-state and other areas of the nation.

U.S. Steel announced Thursday it will invest $1 billion to upgrade its Mon Valley Works, made up of the Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, the Clairton Coke Works and the Irvin Works in West Mifflin. Few, other then a campaigning Donald Trump, could have envisioned that a few years ago.

Manufacturing’s prognosis is positive, with further growth expected in this region and other areas of the country. That translates to more employment opportunities.

Once completed, the $6 billion petrochemical cracker plant in Beaver County is expected to result in 7,000-plus permanent jobs, many in the manufacturing sector. Supply chain industries likewise will ramp up, and outside of manufacturing, the dining and hospitality sectors probably will blossom.

Yet this silver lining has a cloud.

Major concerns have been expressed about whether this region – and nation – will have a sufficient number of trained workers to fill anticipated openings in manufacturing. Baby boomers, an enormous segment of the population, have or will be retiring from the labor force. And while that generation is being outstripped by millennials, numbers-wise, experts are projecting large workforce shortages.

The reasons are manifold. Foremost among them are:

• High school-age students, and younger, don’t consider manufacturing careers to be sexy;
• Despite major innovations and improvements in working conditions – robotics and cleanliness primarily – manufacturing jobs still are perceived to be grimy, grueling and tedious;
• A perception that these jobs don’t pay well – which, in many instances, is a serious misconception;
• Drug testing either dissuades or disqualifies would-be workers;
• And – here’s a major one – many parents don’t want their teens to pursue a manufacturing career and, instead, push them toward a four-year college degree. That is almost a natural reaction, and a large number of their sons and daughters heed their advice – even though they may not be well suited for college.

The mindset is that bachelor’s and/or master’s degrees pay off in better pay, but in reality, students often are incurring large debt during college while some high school classmates are getting a jump on them, making good money in manufacturing before they’re 20.

Neil is among those who are striving to smash these misconceptions. Her agency works to bring companies and job candidates together, and part of that hinges on reaching out to high schools, educating the educators on various employment opportunities that don’t necessarily require a traditional collegiate sheepskin. Southwest Training Services also busily contacts companies, urging some to launch job-apprenticeship programs.

“More companies are starting up apprenticeship programs or growing them,” she said. “We’re hoping to start pre-apprenticeship programs in high schools.”

She works closely with Ami Gatts, director of the Washington Greene County Job Training Agency, whose organization recently launched a workforce manufacturing sector partnership. It is similar to an endeavor that his been successful in neighboring Beaver County.

The goal, she said, is to bring together companies that are not competing against one another, but will work together for a possible mutual benefit. One element of that is to send high school students, 18 and older, on tours of companies or to provide videos of these firms to those under 18.

The emphasis on college rankles Neil, whose agency works with manufacturers. “Not everyone is cut out to go to four-year college programs,” she said. “There are so many talented kids who like to work with their hands who can be excellent employees and who may not be interested in a four-year degree program.”

A college-first mentality rankles Mike Clifton as well. He teaches machining at a technology school in Washington state, and said in an article in NPR.org: “Parents want success for their kids. They get stuck on (four-year bachelor’s degrees), and they’re not seeing the shortage there is in tradespeople until they hire a plumber and have to write a check.”

State Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, read the NPR story and responded on Facebook: “Our economy is screaming for highly skilled workers! Not every student is college bound . . . 4 year degrees are phenomenal for those that are! However, there are scores of great paying jobs – with no college debt – ready and waiting to be filled.”

A manufacturing job today can, indeed, be lucrative.

“Some of our employers are paying $28 an hour and up,” Gatts said. A number of packages include benefits and 401(K) plans, and some – egads – are even offering pensions.

The lack of a post-graduate degree, apparently, is not the hindrance it may have once been. NPR, citing data from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, reported that about “30 million jobs in the United States that pay an average of $55,000 per year don’t require bachelor’s degrees.”

Hager, of DMI, said another study showed that the average manufacturing salary in Southwestern Pennsylvania is 20% higher than the overall average salary.

Hager does, indeed, know manufacturing. And she realizes the perception many people have of manufacturing manufactures misconceptions.

“The biggest misconception,” she said, “is that people think these are hard jobs and you don’t make much money, when it’s really just the opposite.”

Seventy percent of construction companies nationwide are having trouble finding qualified workers, according to the Associated General Contractors of America; in Washington state, the proportion is 80 %.

There are already more trade jobs like carpentry, electrical, plumbing, sheet-metal work and pipe-fitting than Washingtonians to fill them, the state auditor reports. Many pay more than the state’s average annual wage of $54,000.

Construction, along with health care and personal care, will account for one-third of all new jobs through 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There will also be a need for new plumbers and new electricians. And, as politicians debate a massive overhaul of the nation’s roads, bridges and airports, the U.S. Department of Education reports that there will be 68% more job openings in infrastructure-related fields in the next five years than there are people training to fill them.