Local manufacturers push to funnel more skilled workers into pipeline

BY THE NUMBERS

18.5 million: number of U.S. jobs supported by manufacturing

12 percent: manufacturing comprises 12 percent of U.S. gross domestic product

$77,000: annual average salary of manufacturing workers in the U.S.

2,600: amount of National Manfacturing Day events hosted across the country in 2015

Local manufacturers are struggling to find skilled workers to fill positions in an industry that experts say still plays a vital role in bolstering Butler County’s economy.

Businesses are attempting to dispel false notions about the manufacturing industry by opening their doors to local youth on Friday during National Manufacturing Day. Throughout the country, companies will highlight an industry that supports more than 18.5 million jobs in the U.S.

Manufacturing accounts for about 12 percent of Ohio’s total employment, according to John Wallace, vice president of quality and technical systems for NCI Building Systems.

Metal Coaters, a coil coating facility for NCI Building Systems, employs nearly 80 people at its Middletown facility, Wallace said.

“We’re running five to six days a week, 24 hour a day, so business is good,” he said, but added that there is a struggle “finding people that want to get into the manufacturing world.”

“The manufacturing world includes engineers, sales people, business men, lawyers, human resources specialists. There’s a multitude of avenues for people to pursue their career in a manufacturing company,” he said.

Michael Lail, production manager for Precision Strip, said hiring can sometimes be a challenge for the company that processes steel coils and employs 100 at its Middletown plant and approximately 1,300 nationwide.

“Manufacturing isn’t looked upon as a glorious position or a glorious job,” Lail said. “People don’t grow up in high school saying, ‘I’m going to be in manufacturing.’ They’re always wanting the higher spotlight job. You see that and a lot of times we are a second or third option for them.”

By the time people do end up in a manufacturing career, they realize they are in a job that will allow them to raise a family and have a good life, he said.

“They can do everything that they really want to do, it just might not have been what they had in mind for what they wanted to do in their life,” Lail said.

Angela Phillips, president and CEO of welded steel tube supplier Middletown Tube Works, said a big challenge to the manufacturing industry is that its allure has dimmed from year’s past and is seen as “blue-collar work.”

“A lot of it is now computerized and we’re much higher tech than we used to be in much cleaner facilities, but it’s still got a negative connotation and that, in my mind, starts in the education system where we push everybody and say, ‘Everybody needs to go to college.’ “

Ultimately, “that’s just not reality,” Phillips said. “I’ve got employees who have been here for two years and they’re making over $50,000 a year. A lot of college graduates don’t make that kind of money when they come out and they have all kinds of debt.”

Finding people who are drug free also is a challenge, as well as finding individuals who have some mechanical background and can work in a manufacturing environment, she said.

Today’s Manufacturing Day program hosted by The Chamber of Commerce Serving Middletown, Monroe & Trenton will include tours of area facilities. Its aim is to introduce students to modern manufacturing and possible future career paths.

The program includes Metal Coaters Ohio, Precision Strip and Middletown Tube Works, along with six other area companies.

“Students today are faced with a lot of different choices after graduation and we are excited to show them some of the wonderful opportunities they have here at home,” said Rick Pearce, the chamber’s president.

Wallace said he hopes Metal Coaters’ participation in Manufacturing Day highlights the importance of manufacturing to Butler and Warren counties’ communities and inspires the next generation of manufacturers.

“Manufacturing Day allows us to provide students with an experience of a 21st century facility that dispels the image of a 19th century factory,” Wallace said.