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Hagerstown Community College industrial technology and energy instructor Tony Valente teaches production practices that local manufacturers may use to improve their workforce. (By Kevin G. Gilbert/Staff Photographer / February 22, 2013) |
This is one in an occasional series of stories about findings and recommendations in the Hagerstown and Washington County Economic Development Strategic Plan.
Sunday’s story looks at information contained in the study about workforce development.
Coming Monday: Education
As a businessman, Dan Pheil has a real-world perspective on the need for, and shortage of, skilled workers.
“A skilled workforce is the gift that keeps on giving,” with better productivity, earnings, wages and economic development, said Pheil, who is chairman of the Hagerstown-Washington County Economic Development Commission and president of Cinetic Landis Corp., a manufacturer of precision machine tools for the automotive industry.
The EDC recently approved the economic development strategic plan commissioned on its behalf by the Hagerstown-Washington County Industrial Foundation, known as CHIEF. The Washington County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 19 adopted the plan and asked the EDC, which the report suggests as the lead economic development agency, to determine five priority projects.
Those projects haven’t been identified, but Pheil noted he has a special interest in development of workers.
Workforce development is “kind of a hot button topic of mine,” Pheil said.
Over the past two years, his business has added about 75 positions, but it took about a year longer than planned to get them on board.
“Within the last month, actually, we got our skilled trades assembly workforce where we wanted it to be,” Pheil said.
Those hires, he said, came from three main sources — people who worked for other companies; contract workers at Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pa., whose contracts had expired; and retrained workers.
If the demand for a certain skill set is high, the jobless rate among people with those skills is low and it can take more effort to recruit them, Pheil said. Many of the workers recruited by Cinetic Landis came from other companies, and word of mouth from those employees helped attract others, he said.
There are hundreds of thousands of unfilled manufacturing jobs in the nation, and it takes time to develop skilled workers to fill them, Pheil said. There might also be the outdated image of manufacturing as hot, dirty and unpleasant work, although Cinetic Landis is an air-conditioned work environment, he said.
“Probably, as manufacturers, we could do a better job of marketing ourselves,” Pheil said.
In other areas, the supply of mechanical engineers has been adequate, but there has been a shortage of electrical engineers, Pheil said.
It is ironic, Pheil said, that the county has a relatively high unemployment rate at the same time it has a shortage of skilled workers in some specialties. He said the need for skilled workers is local, statewide, national and even global.
“EDC’s Workforce Development Committee has focused primarily on the skills gap in the manufacturing field,” committee Chairman Bob Jeffers said in an e-mail. “That’s one of the areas we feel we can make the greatest initial impact in regards to bringing good jobs to Washington County.”
“The industrial skills gap is a problem everywhere, and we need to show prospective employers we have effective job-training programs in place to produce skilled workers,” said Jeffers, who is president of the Manpower Inc. franchise in Hagerstown, an employment services company that places workers with companies.
A skills gap
Sunday’s story looks at information contained in the study about workforce development.
Coming Monday: Education
As a businessman, Dan Pheil has a real-world perspective on the need for, and shortage of, skilled workers.
“A skilled workforce is the gift that keeps on giving,” with better productivity, earnings, wages and economic development, said Pheil, who is chairman of the Hagerstown-Washington County Economic Development Commission and president of Cinetic Landis Corp., a manufacturer of precision machine tools for the automotive industry.
The EDC recently approved the economic development strategic plan commissioned on its behalf by the Hagerstown-Washington County Industrial Foundation, known as CHIEF. The Washington County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 19 adopted the plan and asked the EDC, which the report suggests as the lead economic development agency, to determine five priority projects.
Those projects haven’t been identified, but Pheil noted he has a special interest in development of workers.
Workforce development is “kind of a hot button topic of mine,” Pheil said.
Over the past two years, his business has added about 75 positions, but it took about a year longer than planned to get them on board.
“Within the last month, actually, we got our skilled trades assembly workforce where we wanted it to be,” Pheil said.
Those hires, he said, came from three main sources — people who worked for other companies; contract workers at Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pa., whose contracts had expired; and retrained workers.
If the demand for a certain skill set is high, the jobless rate among people with those skills is low and it can take more effort to recruit them, Pheil said. Many of the workers recruited by Cinetic Landis came from other companies, and word of mouth from those employees helped attract others, he said.
There are hundreds of thousands of unfilled manufacturing jobs in the nation, and it takes time to develop skilled workers to fill them, Pheil said. There might also be the outdated image of manufacturing as hot, dirty and unpleasant work, although Cinetic Landis is an air-conditioned work environment, he said.
“Probably, as manufacturers, we could do a better job of marketing ourselves,” Pheil said.
In other areas, the supply of mechanical engineers has been adequate, but there has been a shortage of electrical engineers, Pheil said.
It is ironic, Pheil said, that the county has a relatively high unemployment rate at the same time it has a shortage of skilled workers in some specialties. He said the need for skilled workers is local, statewide, national and even global.
“EDC’s Workforce Development Committee has focused primarily on the skills gap in the manufacturing field,” committee Chairman Bob Jeffers said in an e-mail. “That’s one of the areas we feel we can make the greatest initial impact in regards to bringing good jobs to Washington County.”
“The industrial skills gap is a problem everywhere, and we need to show prospective employers we have effective job-training programs in place to produce skilled workers,” said Jeffers, who is president of the Manpower Inc. franchise in Hagerstown, an employment services company that places workers with companies.
A skills gap
