workforce
current tool & die workers will be eligible to retire in the next five to seven years. A common refrain in CAR’s interviews with tool & die leaders was, “All the good toolmakers are old.” One company executive who was interviewed for this research noted that nearly 80% of his company’s current tool & die workforce could retire today. Indeed, the average age of tool & die workers across all industries skews older than the production workforce—with over two-fifths of all tool & die workers over the age of 55. It can take 10 or more years to produce a master tool &
die maker, and few apprentices were put on employment rolls during the early years of the automotive recovery in 2009– 2011. Without sufficient lead-time, the only replacements for retiring tool & die makers is to work the incumbent workers more hours or to hire experienced tool & die makers away from suppliers and competitors. Over time, the practice of hiring from suppliers and customers should drive up average wages in this occupation if labor supply remains relatively constant. One respondent characterized it this way, “we’re in a crisis, and people don’t realize it yet.”
Challenge 3: Implications of Trade and Purchasing Decisions on Apprenticeships An unexpected finding in this research was that auto- makers’ and suppliers’ purchasing decisions are playing a role in eroding opportunities for skilled trades talent devel- opment. Since the early 2000s, there has been consistent pressure for automotive tooling firms to build tools, dies, and molds at “China price.”
Few firms could meet these lower prices and continue to
produce a large portion of their tooling in the United States, so the tool build phase has been largely offshored to China and other low-cost-labor countries. One respondent mentioned that there are times when a tool built offshore “is cheaper than just buying the components in the United States.” With very little “build” work on which to train new appren-
tices, it is difficult to train new tool & die workers on how to support and repair the foreign-built tools in production.
Conclusion
Between June 2009 and January 2017, US motor vehicle and parts employment grew by over 56%. While the rate of employment growth is starting to slow, automakers and suppliers continue to hire at a brisk pace due to both
increased hires and separations in the industry and an uptick in retirement attrition rates. When an industry is doing well, it is common to see more employees leaving their jobs in pursuit of better opportunities within the industry, so it is not surprising there appears to be more churn recently in the automotive and parts industries. While churn and retirement attrition pose challenges for hiring both salaried and hourly workers, there’s one particular occupational group where the challenges are particularly acute: automo- tive skilled trades.
The coming crisis in skilled trades—particularly in tool & die—is only going to get worse.
The coming crisis in skilled trades—particularly in tool & die—is only going to get worse. Over the next few years, automakers are expected to ramp up the number of all new and refreshed models they are producing for the US market. The steady cadence of new vehicle introductions and model refreshes—combined with the introduction of new materials, new processes, and new technologies—will put additional demands on the tool & die sector. The industry’s ability to execute these critical product launches on time is at significant risk because the ability of the manufacturing and tooling sectors to respond is hindered by current capacity constraints and a significant shortage of skilled talent.
The industry needs to attract young people to careers in the trades and support training for smaller firms that are struggling to retain their workforce in this competitive employment market.
Policies to support human capital investments and make training and education more affordable are critical to solving these issues, as is the creation of robust industry- education partnerships to support cooperative employment, career learning in secondary schools, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) activities in K–12 education, and increased support for apprenticeships.
Access the full report at
http://www.cargroup.org. Research funded by the Arconic Foundation
72 — Motorized Vehicle Manufacturing 2017
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