President Donald Trump has promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. However, the CEOs of several manufacturing companies have suggested that what America lacks is not manufacturing jobs, but the skills needed to fill the empty positions.
On Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017, President Trump invited 24 CEOs of manufacturing companies to the White House. The aim of the meeting was to discuss how to bring manufacturing jobs that have been outsourced to foreign countries back to the United States. However, this task might not be as simple as President Trump hopes.
Speaking in a meeting with White House officials before his appointment with the president, one CEO claimed that there were still plenty of opportunities in the manufacturing sector, but not enough people have the skills required to fill them. Today's manufacturing sector increasingly relies on advanced technology, which means it needs a workforce that has the right skills to develop and maintain manufacturing hardware and software.
According to leading manufacturing CEOs, what the United States needs to increase manufacturing jobs is a significant investment in vocational training. This could help to develop skills in the workforce that enable them to become the kind of skilled workers that employers in the manufacturing industry are struggling to recruit.
Unfortunately, the manufacturing CEOs advocating for more training don't see eye to eye with President Trump, who claims that the main reason for the decline in manufacturing jobs is unfair competition from China and Mexico. During the White House meeting, the president brought up this topic over and over again.
President Trump intends to reform taxes, regulations and trade tariffs to level the playing field between the United States and countries such as Mexico and China, which are able to produce many goods much more cheaply than U.S.-based manufacturers. Following his meeting with leading manufacturing CEOs, White House officials said that Trump supports the idea of offering more training to American workers, but no details about a possible training program have yet been released.
The existence of a manufacturing skills gap in the United States is well documented. The Manufacturing Institute has predicted that nearly 2 million more skilled workers are needed to fill the high-tech positions that will open up between now and 2025. There aren't enough graduates coming out of American universities to fill these jobs, which is a major cause for concern for many experts in the manufacturing industry.
If President Trump follows through on his promise to listen to the demands of manufacturing CEOs for more training, it's possible that the skills gap could close. Without a big investment in training programs to create the skilled workforce needed in the 21st century, American manufacturers could be forced to keep exporting manufacturing jobs overseas.
Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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