Industry seeks youth infusion

The recent Rhode Island Manufacturing Week trumpeted an industry that last year added 700 jobs – the first job growth in seven years.

That’s great news, though it could be even better if local manufacturers could lure more prospective workers to the industry.

With 1,600 manufacturers in Rhode Island and 42,000 workers, manufacturers have seen job vacancies rise from 1,200 in 2014 to 1,800 this year, according to Chris Matteson, vice president of the Rhode Island Manufacturer’s Association. About 15 percent of the increased vacancies are retirements.

That means most of those new vacancies would represent growth, if employers could find the workers they need. And the problem isn’t limited to filling manufacturing jobs in Rhode Island.

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At Yushin America Inc. one service position has been vacant for a year. Rather than pay a recruiter, Yushin spent $35,000 to hire a man from Puerto Rico willing to relocate to a Yushin plant in Texas. The firm is paying his salary and rent here in Rhode Island and training him for that position, said Michael R. Greenhalgh, Yushin director of operations.

Greenhalgh has been looking for more than three months for a production-assistant replacement to work at the firm’s Cranston plant.

“We use … everything short of a recruiter,” he said. “And it’s [like looking for] a needle in a haystack.”

“I know it’s not going to change overnight,” he said of the vacancy issue. But “Manufacturing Week helps,” Greenhalgh added.

“Anything that draws attention to the industry is going to help,” he said. “What needs to happen is the state and federal government need to provide training programs that can churn out people focused” on demand.

In its second year, Manufacturing Week ran from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2. Events, fewer but more focused than last year, drew hundreds of adults and youth. They coincided with the 2015 Real Jobs Rhode Island push, which includes three projects with manufacturing thrusts, as well as a state infusion of $350,000 into Polaris MEP, a division of the University of Rhode Island Research Foundation, said Director Christian Cowan.

Polaris’ “Rocket” program got a jump-start with sold-out workplace tours on Sept. 29 at firms that have been able to manage production efficiently while enhancing profitability, said Cowan.

State agencies, including the R.I. Commerce Corp., are collaborating, Cowan said, in an effort to be more effective in how they help with training. Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor pointed to Real Jobs RI, and a new job tax credit intended to reward and retain manufacturing workers.

“Manufacturers are a priority for the [Gov. Gina M.] Raimondo administration,” he said.

To fill vacant jobs, however, manufacturers know they must attract young people into careers they’ll stay in.

“The end game is to close the skills gap and improve the perception [of manufacturing],” Matteson said. •

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