Why the Manufacturing Skills Gap Is Serious

The manufacturing skills gap. It seems you can’t go a week without a politician, media outlet or industry leader wringing their hands over this issue, perhaps because it’s just so confounding. In an industry that has yet to recover the jobs lost in the recession, we’re dealing with vacancies in the skilled trades that threaten to derail production growth and sector expansion.

According to Manpower Group’s latest “Talent Shortage Survey,” skilled trades positions are the most difficult to fill, and have ranked #1 for the past four years. According to Manpower Group’s report: among the more than 1,000 U.S. employers surveyed, respondents say they are having difficulty filling open positions because candidates lack technical competencies/hard skills (48 percent); candidates lack workplace competencies/soft skills (33 percent) and because of a lack of/no available candidates (32 percent). Read more about how the industry is working to tackle the skills gap.