As National Manufacturing Week opens in Rosemont, IL, amidst plenty of upbeat signs, the Robotic Industries Association reports that 18,228 robots valued at $1.16 billion were ordered in North America last year, surpassing dot-com era figures to set an all-time record. The Institute of Supply Management's manufacturing index rose to 56.7 in February, well above the 50 level that's seen as signifying growth.
That's prompted a focus on the jobs market in manufacturing. In a Tuesday afternoon press conference, the National Association of Manufacturers is offering an update on the state of American manufacturing and detailing a program to help companies fulfill hiring needs by hiring people trained to run the high- tech equipment used by the U.S. military.
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 NAM and RecruitMilitary have teamed up to help manufacturers hire personnel with extensive technical training. |
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NAM has teamed up with RecruitMilitary, LLC, a Loveland, OH, group that's dedicated to helping veterans find jobs. The company has a database of 105,000 self-registered job seekers with military backgrounds, many of them skilled in modern technologies. About 20 % of the candidates have active security clearances, and another 24 percent have recently-expired clearances.
But not everything's rosy. As part of NAM's ongoing examination of the manufacturing field, Ron Pollina of Pollina Corporate Real Estate of Park Ridge, IL, explains that since 2000, approximately 8,500 industrial facilities per year have been closed or significantly vacated as blue-collar jobs move to low wage markets overseas. He adds that on the average, workers lose 20 percent of their pay when they're re-employed after losing a job due to offshoring. That's partly because much of the job growth in the U.S. is in low-wage services.
Pollina, who's completing his third study on changes in corporate construction and facility requirements, also predicts that by 2015, China will be the world's manufacturing leader, while India will be the technological leader in R&D.
http://www.nam.org
www.recruitmilitary.com
http://www.roboticsonline.com/
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