(Reuters) – Matt Arnold just spent $ 5,000 to run help order ads for his company’s five trailer factories, spread from Pennsylvania to Utah.
“We hired two of the ads,” said Arnold, just a fraction of the 125 he needs to regain the full strength of 673 workers. Half of the welding work at his Texas plant is open, for example, creating a bottleneck in an operation that builds trailers on metal structures.
North American manufacturers have long complained about labor shortages, but the past year has proved particularly frustrating.
As the pandemic has taken millions of people out of work, mostly from service sectors like hotels and restaurants, many factories have been pushed into acceleration due to increased demand for everything from pickup trucks to plastic bags. And yet, the high unemployment rates have not translated into workers migrating to open positions on the assembly lines.
On Friday, the Labor Department said 916,000 jobs were created last month, the highest since last August, including 53,000 jobs in the industry. That was the largest number of new jobs at the factory in six months.
The report’s manufacturing diffusion index, a measure of the breadth of contracts in about 75 industries producing goods, recorded one of the highest readings of all time.
Industry employment suffered a much less severe blow than jobs in the service sector last spring, when COVID-19 effectively brought the economy to a standstill. About one in 10 jobs at the plant was eliminated in downtime, compared with about one in six jobs. Factory employment is 4% below pre-pandemic levels, a deficit of 515,000 jobs, against 5.5% of overall employment in the U.S., with a total deficit since February 2020 of 8.4 million jobs.
Other indicators also point to a tight labor market in factories. Earlier this week, the Institute for Supply Management said its national manufacturing activity index jumped to its highest reading in 37 years in March, with the industrial employment indicator rising to its highest level since February 2018.
A metal fabrication company cited in the report said: “The lack of qualified machines and talent in the fabrication workshop” made it difficult to meet demand.
UKG, which provides time management for small and medium-sized businesses, said that the work shift for employees at US manufacturers increased by 3.4% in mid-March compared to mid-February, exceeding a 2.6% increase in all sectors.
(GRAPHIC – The hiring of the factory in the USA was extensive in March 🙂
‘IT’S NOT A DEPOSIT AT HOME’
The scarcity comes at a time when the government of the President of the United States, Joe Biden, has pledged to increase domestic production as part of a broader economic revival plan aimed at creating more blue-collar jobs.
“If we approve this plan, the economy will generate 19 million jobs. Good work. Blue collar jobs. Jobs that pay well, ”said Biden on Friday after the monthly payroll report. “This is a blue collar project to increase opportunities for people.”
At the moment, however, factories across the country are seeing unfilled vacancies.
“I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Arnold, president of Look Trailers, based in Middlebury, Indiana. Look builds utility trailers, which are highly sought after by small companies, such as landscapers and plumbers, as well as by amateurs who use them to transport motorcycles or other bulky sports equipment.
The lack of workers means loss of business for Arnold and his customers. One of its resellers typically has about $ 2 million in stock, but now it has only about $ 200,000. The average price of a trailer is $ 3,400.
Wages at their trailer factories are already well above state or federal minimums. The average starting salary is $ 19 an hour, while workers with skills as welders earn $ 24 or more an hour. “People talk about the oil boom in Dakotas – how workers got into their cars and went out looking for jobs,” he said. “We have the same thing here, a job boom. But no one is coming. “
Many employers see a mismatch between those who are unemployed and jobs in their factories.
“It’s not a Home Depot, Starbucks or a hotel,” said Kevin Kelly, chief executive of Emerald Packaging Inc. in Union City, California. He estimates that one in five new workers gives up in a few days and complains about the environment.
“They are not used to machines that need to be lubricated,” he said, “and the smell of things like paint.” Emerald produces plastic bags for pre-cut vegetables, which are printed in a personalized way with images and information about the product.
Kelly said he is more fortunate to hire people who have worked in a factory. A small print shop just closed close to him, and the owner called to ask if he wanted to buy machines. He sent a manager who ended up handing out job forms. So far, they have hired five employees from the other company and are trying to get two more. However, even with these signings, Emerald is still 14 years old.
Reporting by Timothy Aeppel; Additional reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Chizu Nomiyama