1. Virtual-Based Tech Isn’t For Everyone
Toddlers are using tablets, tweens text more than they actually talk, and high school students are developing their own apps. The next generations of the American workforce will have tech ingrained in their physical, intellectual and emotional development, but that doesn’t mean everyone will want to grow up to be a website developer or software programer. The virtual nature of everything we produce may actually feed into a growing workforce that prefer to work on tangible, concrete parts and products. Manufacturers know that rewarding feeling of seeing and touching the physical results of a concept. Just as skilled workers are drawn to this today, tomorrow’s manufacturers will seek this out as well.
2. It’s Growing And Will Continue To Do So
Month after month, the numbers are in and American manufacturing is making a comeback. Companies are returning their operations to the states, job seekers are training specifically for jobs in this sector, and the country is rediscovering the economic benefits of keeping manufacturing and innovation at home. The world needs more efficient energy and sustainable material solutions, a renewed infrastructure and smarter developments. The manufacturing sector will remain a viable, rewarding prospect for bright young people. Advanced production machinery and equipment has truly dissolved the blue collar and white collar divide associated with this industry, and that will create serious rewards for anyone able to apply their smarts and skills.
3. Manufacturing Has Something For Almost Everyone
The bright, young engineering student can have a promising future in manufacturing, but this sector is offering new opportunities for individuals with skills in design, team management, programing, research, repair, biology, mathematics and others. As manufacturers must maintain dynamic capabilities to keep up with rapidly changing product demands, use of new materials, and other factors, workers must be creative in order to keep up. The manufacturing sector will become more recognized as a welcoming and rewarding place for talents of many types.
4. Sitting At A Desk Is Dull
It’s easy to feel captive in a cubical, and more young people are dreading the idea of feeling trapped in an office to work with abstract data that doesn’t mean much to them at the end of the day. In the past, workers chose such employment for reasons of stability, lack of physical demand and other perks as a tradeoff. Now, American factories offer these same benefits but in a more dynamic setting. Automation and sophisticated equipment has relieved manufacturing of its dirty, backbreaking reputation. Workers can enjoy job stability and security but in more dynamic and interesting environment.
5. They’re Already Doing It
The web is already a hot place for sharing, showcasing and inspiring DIY and crowd-sourced solutions. Young people are designing, building and demonstrating totally new products, as well as improvements to ones that already exist. Manufacturing companies should be taking note and give young people more incentive to apply their ingenuity. As a benefit, they not only encourage and enable talented young people, they attract them as a future workforce.
I’m glad to hear about this trend. I grew up in the dawn of the IT era around the millennium and I developed my coding and writing skills. So most of what I know how to do is virtual and digital in nature. I don’t get the kind of gratification that comes with building or assembling something tangible. I admit that I would not mind having a secure job in manufacturing. I’m just not sure what kind of training I should acquire besides a long term engineering degree.
I would love to know what type of skills I can acquire (at age 44) that can help me land a factory job that comprise this growing trend. I would not mind finding an industrial job at a large assembly plant, but I wonder if I were to acquire the necessary skills, would I have a decent chance of getting a job at my age.