Discussion heated up at the standout afternoon panel at the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s “Manufacturing Matters!” event on Thursday afternoon.
The question, “Is there a skills gap?” was the topic of debate. The panel, moderated by WMEP president Buckley Brinkman, featured Eric Isbister, chief executive officer and co-owner of Mequon-based GenMet Corp., Mike Reader, president of Elkhorn-based Precision Plus Inc., and Marc Levine, founding director of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Center for Economic Development and author of a widely discussed 55-page study claiming Wisconsin’s “skills gap” is a myth.
Isbister, Reader, and what appeared to be every other manufacturer in attendance for the panel strongly – and sometimes quite vocally – disagreed with Levine’s study.
Isbister called the study itself “detrimental” to the future of manufacturing and said it is discouraging people from pursuing careers in the field. He said there is certainly a skills gap now, and that skills gap will get worse in five to 10 years when a large number of his employees, who are now nearing the age of retirement, leave the workforce. He said more needs to be done to reach young people to show that careers in manufacturing are not what they once were, rebuilding the manufacturing jobs pipeline. Isbister called on Levine to stop writing studies that hurt manufacturing.
Levine said he had no intentions to harm the manufacturing industry, and said “manufacturing is the heart of innovation” – perhaps the only point made where the panel was in agreement.
Skilled workers – or lack thereof – was a main discussion point throughout the day, and was a topic discussed by all of the event’s keynote speakers, Badger Meter president and CEO Rich Meeusen, Department of Workforce Development Secretary Reggie Newson, and Gov. Scott Walker, who said $100 million in the most recent state budget was put toward worker training, and more has been allocated in the time since.
Indeed, Levine’s assertions run counter to much of what the conference’s speakers had to say. Levine said larger statistical data does not show a skills gap in Wisconsin.
Wages were among the topics from Levine’s study that were up for debate. Isbister, Reader and a number of leaders in manufacturing in attendance for the panel voiced examples of manufacturing workers in their businesses earning above-average wages, some earning as much as $25 per hour, but they are still struggling to find qualified employees.
Levine said wages for welders, as an example, have declined 11 percent since 1986. He said statistical measurements on things like wages, unemployment data and job vacancy rate do not amount to a “skills gap,” in the same way as in other places, like North Dakota, have identified skills gaps in their workforces.
Another issue was offshoring. Levine said offshoring of jobs has been damaging to the manufacturing industry.
Isbister said it is the lower skill, lower wage jobs that have gone overseas, creating opportunity for more highly skilled workers in the U.S.
Mary Isbister, president of GenMet, said the breakdown of the types of manufacturing jobs available has changed. She said in the past, the number of manufacturing workers could be visualized like a triangle, with a large number of lower skill workers on the bottom, and fewer highly skilled workers at the top. Now, she said, that shape has changed to a diamond, with lower skill workers no longer part of the equation, and a skills gap impacting the middle where the majority of the jobs now are.
Mary Baer, director of member development at the Waukesha County Business Alliance, said there is a disconnect between educators like Levine and the business community.
“I would love to say that in order to teach in a college or a high school, you have to have spent time in business,” she said. “That’s the piece that’s missing…We need to get people connected to the real world.”
Dan Shafer is a reporter at BizTimes.
