Page 58 - Modern Steel Construction (April 2019)

A new coalition aims to close the skilled trades gap.

Filling the Gap

BY ROLINE PASCAL

ONE OF THE HARDEST SEGMENTS of the workforce for employers to find
skilled talent has been the skilled trades: the welders, electricians, machine tool operators,
pipefitters and other tradespeople who are essential in manufacturing and construction.
But if these skilled trade workers are difficult to find now, in a few years, this will
likely become a disconcerting situation. It is estimated that two million manufacturing
jobs will go unfilled by 2025. So the question is: What can we do to solve this problem?
On December 5, 2018, 17 industry organization leaders gathered at the American
Welding Society (AWS) World Headquarters in Miami for the first meeting of the
Skilled Trades Coalition (STC), which was founded as a response to the rising short-
age in skilled trade workers. The mission of the STC is to bring together a group of
thought leaders who are shaping the future of work in their respective trade disciplines
Roline Pascal (rpascal@aws.org) is assistant to explore awareness, recruitment, training and retention of skilled trade workers to
editor of the American Welding Society’s close the skilled trades gap.
Welding Journal. “Over the last several years of my career, I have been hearing a common theme from
multiple industries, which is the growing deficit in access to qualified skilled workers,”
said AWS executive director and CEO Matt Miller. “We began reaching out to our
counterparts at other technical associations and discovered that the challenge we’re
having with attracting workers to welding is mirrored in many other trades, so we put
together a charter to see if we could engage other groups to elevate the conversation
around the skilled trades. Our original goal was to bring together five organizations,
but the interest was so large that we quickly found we had 17 willing partners.”
At the gathering, Coalition participants had the opportunity to interact, share in-
formation and gain consensus on key topics, detail best practices and identify common
challenges, brainstorm, collaborate on awareness of the trades employment gap and
combine resources to accelerate problem solving. The group developed several insight-
ful panel-based sessions to explore the questions and answers to the skills gap. Central
in the discussion was development of strategies to draw more workers to skilled trades,
dispel myths and influence public perceptions.

Attracting Workforce Talent
Amongst the executive partners, a panel was brought in to share insights into op-
portunities and challenges facing the skilled trades in the areas of attracting talent and
managing common misconceptions. The panel included Gardner Carrick, vice presi-
dent, strategic initiatives, with the Manufacturing Institute; Darrell L. Roberts, execu-
tive director of Helmets to Hardhats, Center for Military Recruitment, Assessment
and Veterans Employment; and Pim Bexkens, software engineer and team leader with
WorldSkills Netherlands.
Data from the panel demonstrated that while employment and job openings in the
trades are growing, the industry cannot meet the supply and demand of skilled work-
ers. Thus, there is an urgency to attract young people to the skilled trade workforce as
they are key to closing the gap. The pending retirement of baby boomers, strength of
the economy and gap between the skills that employers need and available workers put
other issues to the forefront.
58 | APRIL 2019