Need for workers expected to increase
Manufacturing — with nearly 10,400 Butler County workers in the first quarter of 2021 — is the second-largest industry in the county, behind only health care.
And like all other industries, it, too, faces current challenges in employment.
Jordan Grady, executive director of the Butler County Chamber of Commerce, said many manufacturers — in Butler and nationwide — are being hit with a one-two punch on the supply end: First, it's harder to find employees; second, the supply-chain issues plaguing the country certainly play a role.
“You'll probably find manufacturers are having to turn away orders, or it's not a workforce issue and they're having supply-chain issues, having trouble getting raw materials,” he said.
Not only that, but most manufacturing companies have professional employees, too. It isn't necessarily any easier to find those workers.
At MSA Safety in Cranberry Township, the demand for its safety equipment hasn't waned much since COVID-19 began. But it is harder to get a good supply of workers.Gillian Williams, global human resources director for MSA, said a main part of the worker issue stems from a widened base of companies making offers to prospective employees.“We're competing against companies we typically wouldn't have in the past,” Williams said. “When you have places like Walmart, Starbucks and other restaurants paying a lot more for their starting salaries, manufacturing, typically, would be higher than that. But we're starting to see some increase, a little bit, in the wages” those companies offer.Increased competition for employees translates into a combination of issues: A shallower pool of applicants and increased timeframes to find those applicants. MSA's global talent director, Bethany Traugh, said each production job is posting results in roughly “less than half” the applications MSA would have received prior to the pandemic.“We're finding applicants. It's taking us a longer period of time,” Williams added. “In the past, we could post this production assistant (job opening), we could have it filled, say, within 30 days or 30 to 45 days. We're finding people, it's definitely the timing of that that's been extended.”
While not directly involved in the manufacturing of different products, steamfitters — skilled workers who make, install and service piping systems, such as HVAC, hydraulics and process piping — are certainly involved in the creation, retooling and maintenance of systems included in manufacturing.“Manufacturing is good for the steamfitters because any type of manufacturing that happens, there's piping involved,” said Ken Broadbent, business manager for Steamfitters Local 449. “If it's not heating and air conditioning, it's piping for power, hydraulics, oils.”Broadbent said his worry when COVID-19 began wasn't about new apprentices, but rather about the work available for the roughly 1,800 active union members in the local.“I thought we were going to go into a recession, with COVID, with people not being in buildings,” he said. “But then the stimulus money came; there was money available for people to put in better heating and air conditioning systems.”There's still work available now, and Broadbent has no worries about the number of people interested in becoming a steamfitter to meet current demands. Roughly 450 people each year apply to the union's apprenticeship program, and between 60 and 70 are accepted on average.What he's concerned about, instead, is the increased amount of work in the future. He pointed to the increasing number of extreme weather events — heat waves, polar vortexes — and said they will increase demand for steamfitters' work.“You've got to stay indoors and do stuff early and use air conditioners,” he said. “People that can do heating and air conditioning or refrigeration, there's going to be a shortage of them, and you're going to need more and more people who do it because you need more refrigeration, you need more air conditioning. I believe there's a need for people to work in the skilled trades.”The increased demand is a good thing for Broadbent and the Steamfitters — “when there's less people that have a certain skill, you can demand more money,” he said — but he added the number of people interested in entering the industry needs to increase to meet future demand.
For both MSA and the Steamfitters, there's a bit of an education gap.“I would say, the younger generation, they have a perception of manufacturing that is probably not entirely accurate,” Williams said. “If they have a choice between going into the manufacturing — and they have a perception of what that looks like — versus working at Target or Starbucks, or someplace like that, and making about the same amount of money, that sways their decision a little bit.”That perception of manufacturing, as a risky, dirty job, is both inaccurate, Williams said, and decreases the number of people interested in a job at MSA or somewhere similarly situated. The perception, she added, is on them to fix.“It is a lot more high-tech in some places,” Williams said. “That's on us to provide that education, that awareness, and I think that's where we see it, is the people who aren't familiar with what manufacturing can offer now that they have all these other choices.”Broadbent added that students are often exposed to a negative portrayal of blue-collar work from a young age.“Guidance counselors don't push students to go to the building trades, they push everybody to go to college,” he said. “Most of the guidance counselors are educated people, and they believe in education. I think, in the last couple of years, you're seeing more people realize that there's other ways to make a living, rather than just college.”
Broadbent said the union has worked at changing this perception, and has somewhat succeeded. A few years ago, Steamfitters Local 449 received a state grant to produce essentially a marketing video to send to high schools to expose students to other ways of making a living.“I think it's better than it used to be. Right now, it seems to be a real in-fashion thing, where more educators are talking about other occupations, that there are other ways to get educated besides college,” Broadbent said.Likewise, MSA has worked with some colleges and secondary schools to expose students to its mission. Williams said the company sparked a co-op program, where students can work side-by-side on the production floor with production technicians.Mark Deasy, an MSA spokesman, said the company also has partnered with schools, such as Nazareth Prep, to bring students in and expose them to what a career at MSA would look like.“That's definitely an opportunity there and we'll continue to expand on that,” Williams said. “But there's more that we can do, and frankly it may require us to partner with other manufacturing organizations in the area.”
Much as Grady said companies in retail and hospitality have devised creative solutions to find, recruit and retain workers, so too have companies in the manufacturing sphere.MSA, for instance, recently hosted a job fair specifically for jobs at the Cranberry Woods company — something it typically does not do on its own, but rather at larger fairs.Williams said the company has also reached out to some refugee agencies to see if any displaced persons would be interested in the company's Pittsfield, Mass., production plant, in what she described as a mutually beneficial arrangement.“That's another area that we'll continue to explore,” she said. “It's a way to give back and give meaningful employment to the individual, but that's something we'll look at.”It's one way of finding potential workers, but Traugh said MSA explores many other avenues.“We outreach through as many channels as we can: Through social media, through our own employees and referrals, temp agencies who are connecting with people looking for work, to community organizations,” Traugh said. With COVID-19 restrictions largely lifted or in the process of being lifted, Traugh said the company also plans to visit schools and expose them to what careers in manufacturing look like.Williams said the company's biggest issue isn't the benefits package or pay it offers — she said those are already more than competitive — but rather making job openings visible. Deasy agreed, saying the company needs to highlight its mission.“I think our biggest recruiting tool is the mission of MSA. That hasn't changed in 107 years, from when John Ryan and George Deike founded the company to help protect miners,” Deasy said. “It's to help protect people at work every single day, and our people really have a passion for that mission.”
