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Skilled Help Wanted
Businesses team up to attract workers
By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
Dale Foer- ster lived in Germany for 11 years.
During her time in one of Europe’s strongest economic countries, she noticed a distinct difference in the way workers from different job sectors presented themselves.
“If a woman was a mail carrier, she was proud to be a mail carrier,” said Foerster, vice president of Starr Manufacturing Inc. in Youngstown. “Everyone seems to respect everyone else’s job.”
Unfortunately, she said, that same mind-set isn’t prevalent here in the United States, which has led to a well-documented lack of skilled-trades workers.
“Kids don’t think it’s sexy to go into some sort of hand-working occupation,” she said. “I think we’ve gotten away from the pride of the skilled trades.”
It’s also a poorly timed dilemma, with the unemployment rate above 9 percent nationwide and nearly 10 percent here in the Mahoning Valley.
The pleas for skilled workers have come in droves, but the message isn’t getting across.
Some local businesses have decided to take on the problems, not as one, but as a team.
They’re called the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition, a group of 14 manufacturing-based organizations that have come together and pooled their resources in an effort to publicize the need for skilled-trade workers.
“There is a lack of local infrastructure to support the Valley’s manufacturing base and a true bricks-and-mortar community college,” said Brian Benyo, president of Brilex Industries Inc. and the MVMC.
The problem, as many manufacturers have expressed, is simple. Universities are great educational tools, but they don’t focus heavily enough on manufacturing. Trade schools narrow the focus, but not enough students take that route.
Foerster said the need for skilled workers is so great that companies often steal, for lack of a better term, workers from nearby companies because the work force is lacking. And these jobs, she said, often don’t come with the prerequisite of a college degree or even a trade-school certificate.
She said if the labor force knows the basic skills required for jobs, companies often take the time and train them for specific positions.
But the problem has been that many Americans, including the unemployed, are unaware or unimpressed with skilled-trades jobs.
“The issue of work-force development has been ignored by different bodies for quite some time, whether it’s political or nonpolitical or in education,” Benyo said. “Part of the problem has been a lack of a voice from the manufacturing community.”
MVMC is hoping to find strength in numbers.
The MVMC team is deep and diverse: Condo Inc.; Warren Screw Machine; Specialty Fab Inc.; Glunt Industries Inc.; BOC Water Hydraulics Inc.; City Machine Technologies Inc.; Howland Machine Corp.; Butech Bliss Inc.; Specialty Ceramic; Warren Fabricating and Machining; Girard Machine Co.; Starr Manufacturing Inc.; Kiraly Tool and Die Inc.; and M-7 Technologies Inc.
The group also wooed Jessica Borza, former chief operating officer of the Mahoning and Columbiana One-Stops, the Valley’s major work-force development center, to lead the team.
Each company pooled $3,000 for their future efforts, to promote and educate the public on their needs.
Borza said the group, which met last Friday, already has come up with a list of occupations that are most needed here in the Valley, including machinists, engineers, electricians, machine and tool assemblers, tool and die makers, quality inspectors and industrial maintenance workers.
“Now that we’ve identified these areas,” Borza said, “we can dive into the issues” and start talking about and getting a better understanding of the root causes of work shortages.
That will be the group’s next step: to work with colleges such as Youngstown State University and Kent State University, community colleges such as Eastern Gateway and the area trade schools, plus work-force development agencies such as the local One-Stops to shape curriculums to better fit the work-force needs.
“There is no more pressing issue than labor force and labor-force development,” Benyo said. “This stands to benefit this area for the next generation and beyond.”