After years of decline, manufacturing jobs in Connecticut are now trending upward.
As the state takes proactive steps to ensure people are trained for manufacturing jobs, employment numbers are simultaneously rising. In the most recent data, manufacturing jobs increased from 163,500 last year to 164,100 this year.
“During the decades of job losses, many parents were losing middle-class manufacturing jobs and (in turn) discouraged their children from pursuing manufacturing as a career,” said Lori-Lynn Chatlos, business services specialist at the state Department of Labor. “The public technical schools were drained of resources because of the lack of public investment.”
But for the past few years, the state has been paying close attention to the return on investment in technical and trades education. The state has a sharp focus on preparing its young workforce to take the place of aging baby boomers who are slowly exiting the job market, Chatlos said. It will be difficult to find qualified candidates to fill manufacturing job openings without investing in technical skills training and advanced manufacturing certificate programs.
“We”™re concerned about the age of our manufacturing workforce,” said Patrick Flaherty, an economist with the state Labor Department. “A lot of them are nearing retirement so there”™s a concern we won”™t have enough people ready to take those jobs. We need to have a pipeline because a lot of these folks are going to be leaving. Job openings in manufacturing could be huge as retirement happens. We”™re already seeing it happen.”
The manufacturing industry received a boost when the state passed the jobs bill in 2011, investing money into technical education that would equip both the long-term unemployed and high school graduates with the training they need to succeed at their jobs.
Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport now provides advanced manufacturing certificates. State funding covers part of the tuition costs for those enrolled in the nine-month course. Last year, 25 out of 26 people in the program found jobs after graduation. The one person who didn”™t find a job after graduating from the program was a high school student who wasn”™t ready to enter the job market yet, said Gene LaPorta, outreach coordinator for the Advanced Manufacturing Center at the college.
“The average age of a machinist is about 57,” LaPorta said. “People stay in manufacturing for a long time. Because of that there aren”™t enough skilled employees to replace an aging workforce and the workforce have to train the younger workforce. There”™s a great tsunami of workers leaving in five to six years. That”™s part of the labor forecast that supports what the governor is doing with advanced manufacturing centers.”
Kris Lorch, president of Alloy Engineering Company Inc. in Bridgeport, can testify to the longevity of employment at her manufacturing company. Some of her 43 employees have been at the company for more than 30 years. She said the median age of her employees is 58, and only one or two people a year are getting advanced manufacturing certificates.
Although Fairfield County is known for its financial epicenter and major insurance companies, manufacturing is a major job-creating industry in this region. Lorch said one reason the state and private sectors are supporting the growth of manufacturing jobs is because of a multiplier effect.
“When I hire people, I”™m buying more metal, tooling, chairs, office supplies, coolants, oils and other factory supplies to support that person. For every widget, I need boxes and packaging to ship the goods. Everything I consume in order to make the product has a multiplier effect,” Lorch said.
Transportation equipment is the state”™s largest employer in the sector with 34,154 jobs, according to a Manufacturers”™ News survey. Fabricated metals ranked second, accounting for 26,007 jobs. Industrial machinery ranked third with 25,903 jobs, the survey showed.
Other key manufacturing arenas in Connecticut include biomedical device, aerospace and precision machining. The state is also seeing a growth in advanced weapon systems such as threat-detection devices and protective gear and in electronics used for cybersecurity.
In Fairfield County, two manufacturing companies recently expanded: Memry Corp. in Bethel and Neeltran Inc. in New Milford. Meanwhile, Smiths Detection in Danbury is leaving the state next year and taking 130 jobs along with it. Despite vacillating employment numbers in manufacturing, smaller companies have been holding steady in Connecticut.
“Free-trade policies led to massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S., and Connecticut felt the impact more than many other states since it was traditionally one of our largest sectors,” Chatlos said.
“I”™ve seen many companies through ups and downs and the types of family-owned manufacturing companies that started out in a garage, basement or at the kitchen table are abundant in Fairfield County and across the state. They tend to be less mobile than large multinationals and are often more vested in their community, so they found a way to survive.”
