The Impact of Manufacturing

February 4, 2013

“He is desperate for a steady job. He has been unemployed for most of the three years since he graduated from a community college here after growing up on a farm. The young man, 25, has worked only several months at a time in low-paying jobs, once as a shopping mall guard, another time as a restaurant waiter and most recently as an office building security guard.

But he will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages.”

The paragraphs above are excerpted from this New York Times article. It’s about a young man from Guangzhou, China, but could have easily been set in almost any region of the United States.

As noted in this BusinessWeek article, 600,000 manufacturing jobs are going unfilled according to the Manufacturing Institute’s skills gap assessment. There are many reasons for this perception and manufacturing is not a career everyone can pursue. However, it is indeed a career very well suited for thousands of bright people who have not given it enough consideration.

Knox County, Ohio made this video that promotes the profession, and we are happy to share it with both employment seekers and parents of kids considering career options. Manufacturing is important to the economy in the Columbus Region – an area that’s home to great manufacturing companies like Worthington Industries, Rolls Royce, DuPont, PPG, Honda, and Anheuser-Busch Inbev.

The manufacturing industry is full of interesting and lucrative career paths within innovative companies. Manufacturing is safe, stimulating and provides a sense of accomplishment that few professional jobs can offer. Good training programs are offered at low costs and are available throughout our communities. Salaries and wages can be quite good, and in some skilled positions they can be outstanding. Business training learned on the shop floor has led countless workers to the board room, because of the intimacy with the products produced and the people they worked with to produce them.

The growth and health of our regional economy depends on the production of quality, innovative products. Manufacturers can and will continue to provide good jobs, great career opportunities, and a point of pride for our entire area. We have work to do in order to help them.

If you’d like to learn more about manufacturing in Ohio, visit this page on the JobsOhio website and check out the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association.

For more about manufacturing in the Columbus Region, visit this page on our website and check out OH!Manufacturing. You can also view manufacturing opportunities available in the Columbus Region at this link from Ohio Means Jobs.