Skills gap looms at U.S. factories as boomers retire. (The Globe and Mail, 9/8/2011)
Excerpt: The U.S.’s biggest industrial companies face an average bill of at least $100-million (U.S.) each over the next five years as they struggle to fill the skills gaps left by the looming retirement of baby boomer factory workers, according to a survey of manufacturers to be released Thursday.
The survey by Nielsen Co. of 100 top executives at U.S. manufacturing companies underlines the scale of the demographic problem facing the U.S. economy. In recent decades, apprenticeships and workplace training have been gradually downgraded, to the extent that many manufacturers now complain they cannot find the skilled workers they need in spite of stubbornly high unemployment.
Mechanics and engineers from the baby-boom generation – born in the two decades following the second world war – formed the backbone of the U.S.’s industrial work force from the 1960s onwards. However, the first baby boomers become eligible for retirement this year, raising the spectre that the skills gap could worsen sharply in the next few years.
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