Running out of Machinists

[Oldwrench]

If the need is local, then the job will have to pay local requirements, but if the need is state, nation, or global, then the lower cost overhead will win.

^^^^^This is it in a nutshell.^^^^^
We moved from Maryland to Wyoming for the lower overhead (which was, overall, a good move) but during an oil boom we run up against downhole companies grossly inflating the area wages. If we were next to Boeing or Google it would be the same, except all the time. You're always gonna be next to somebody, but you probably have better staff security if it's a hot-mix plant. Just sayin'

 

[Oldwrench]

...But if you want the dude who's done and seen it all and can make you a shitload of money, you're going to pay for him... and he's going to take his lifestyle into account when he asks for what he wants.

"Done and seen it all" is not a guarantee that he will make you a shitload of money. Unless (1) he's in charge, and (2) he's you.
I get that you're referring to a job shop environment—but in a factory situation I'd lean more toward reasonably intelligent button-pushers.

 

[Diezel]

"Done and seen it all" is not a guarantee that he will make you a shitload of money. Unless (1) he's in charge, and (2) he's you.
I get that you're referring to a job shop environment—but in a factory situation I'd lean more toward reasonably intelligent button-pushers.

I mean, i get what you're saying. But i also don't think a "button pusher" should be labeled as a machinist either. Just because you can load a part and check it with calipers doesn't make you a machinist. And at this point i wouldn't even call myself a machinist. I'm basically an ME and if you tell me it can't be done i will show you how it's done.
I get that I am fairly niche, and most shops arent taylored to my skillset. If you run production, your shop rate is gonna be lower, therefore making your pay low. Therefore making me not something you need. But if you're a job shop, especially an inside job shop... someone like me will make you a ton of money, and that's why i get the pay that i want and have ZERO worries about not having a job, no matter the climate.

 

[Ox]

Not me.......................I hate the public.............used to be a people person, then people ruined it for me...........................plus runin' a hotdog cart might be tough 'round my neck of the woods..............October 21 and we got 6" of the white stuff and 6-9" more in the next few days.....................UGH!

I blame it solely on Ox..........................Think snow, eh? I thinkin of runnin over to oHIo to kick him in the pants.....................

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[Mr Happy]

No idea if this has been posted as I'm not going back 30 pages to check. It's a wage comparison from 1993. $18 in 1993, with just short of an average 3% inflation, equals $36 today.

 

[thermite]

No idea if this has been posted as I'm not going back 30 pages to check. It's a wage comparison from 1993. $18 in 1993, with just short of an average 3% inflation, equals $36 today.

View attachment 302569

I was alooong way from the shop floor by 1993, but for comparison, had a staff of 37 at an average US$ 78,000/year base salary, average 18% performance bonus "win" for the year.

Bonus aside, that would have been about $37.50 / hr in 1993 dollars.

This was NOT "big bucks" even for the industry, as the clients were the Fortune 400, and the folks were based, worked and lived where they were HQ'ed in high COL areas: Manhattan, Burlingame/SFO, Santa Monica/LA, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Metro DC.

2CW

 

[DouglasJRizzo]

I believe that you are wrong there.

Prob'ly the same for med insurance, but not monthly cash payment.







I wouldn't be gravitating towards - nor using Seattle in my examples right now - as I fully expect that town to come on very hard times for the next several years at least, doo to germaphobia. I understand that there is more going on there than Boeing, but that is a huge pc of the pie, and it will make a BIG mark on the local economy as it goes into a stall and starts to fall out of the sky. I doubt that you will be able to give away a machinist job there for some time, as the other industries there don't tend to have much need for them.


------------------

I am Ox and I approve this h'yah post!

I think that the current situation will deter industry for some time. Even if Boeing stays.

 

[Mr Happy]

I was alooong way from the shop floor by 1993, but for comparison, had a staff of 37 at an average US$ 78,000/year base salary, average 18% performance bonus "win" for the year.

Bonus aside, that would have been about $37.50 / hr in 1993 dollars.

This was NOT "big bucks" even for the industry, as the clients were the Fortune 400, and the folks were based, worked and lived where they were HQ'ed in high COL areas: Manhattan, Burlingame/SFO, Santa Monica/LA, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Metro DC.

2CW

With pay like that back then I'd say most of those jobs have now been moved to China. I'd bet cash money some accountant used those salaries as an example of how much could be saved by moving those jobs offshore and earnt a large bonus for doing so.

Best I earnt working for someone else as a toolmaker would have been equivalent on the exchange to $37 an hour, 5 years ago. And that wasn't really higher than anywhere else or deviated much from the average. Three companies I've worked for in the past near 20 years have gone bust because they couldn't compete with cheaper work from eastern europe, let alone the far east.

Pay is now low because globalisation has done us over. You can get cheap tools made in China, yet Chinese sparkies aren't jumping on a plane to come keep your lights on.

 

[david n]

Manufacturing is global.................carpentry, auto tech, masonry, electrician, plumbing, etc. is not.................and everything manufactured today has been touched by our industry. Be it items directly made in a machine shop or a consumer product mass produced in factories on equipment made in a machine shop. Nearly all of it can be made else where cheaper..................I have friends and relatives making $30-40/hr in non manufacturing trades. If I was a young'n, I'd steer clear of machining.......................

 

[kustomizer]

Right here you bring up another excellent variable: market segment! Which has far more effect on (machinist) wages than local.

You and I do two different things, even though we are both "machinists". The only way for me to make money doing what I do, is do it the way I am doing it.
I have done very little aerospace (high level machinist stuff). What little I did do was very stressful. I have done a ton of semi-conductor (mid level machinist stuff).
And, more aluminum widget stuff than you can fathom. All worth varying amounts of compensation for varied reasons. Local being very low on the factoring pole.

As recent as 5 years ago we still had several people working for us, a girl in the office who could answer phones, emails, keep track of jobs in the shop, check parts to a fair degree and handle shipping and recieving, she did a good job of it for the most part. There wer 3 guys in the shop, 1 that could usually put blanks in the machine, flip them part way through and later take good parts out except when they were not good and he always would mix the bad parts with the good ones before finding out they were bad even though our process said check them first then put them with the others, in 2 years he could not learn that yet he called himself a machinist. One could set up repeat jobs, pull down the job box, load the program, mount the soft jaws, find zero's, take offsets but would take so long getting to that point he would often rush through the prooving it out part and damage the fixtures and special tools, once it was finally running he would usually make good parts but like the other guy he would missload parts then put the bad ones in with the good ones and we would end up with someone helping him sort them out so we could make sure we were making enough for the order. The third guy made setting up repeat jobs he had done several times look like childs play but one he had only done a couple times he would almost every time do something that cost more time than the job was worth or destroy the fizture.

We have tried everything under the sun to put a good team together over the years but recent years there has been a huge shift in the "quality" of the work people are willing to do and this could have a lot to do with folks wanting jobs not careers. I had thought when I started this shop that one day we would hand it off to the team working there for a small monthly payment allowing them to make a good living and we would move on. It didn't seem to matter how much money we offered we could not get them to do the work the way we found works and is profitable. Once we figured plan A wasn't going to happen we switched gears and started dropping the jobs we were keeping to keep people in paychecks and kept the ones that we make good money on while focusing on our own products that would allow her and I to do it our selves. The bottom line is better, we are back on the floor more but most of the stress is gone. Once we sell the old place we will likely drop a few more job shop jobs even though they are good money jobs they take time we could be doing something more fun. Finding good help at any price is going to get a whole lot harder in the next few years from what We have seen. I think more automation and higher taxes to feed them that won't learn is on the horizon.

 

[Mike1974]

I think the new push for higher minimum wage, and the places that have implemented it, plays a big role too. When I was coming up and doing my apprenticeship, I think I finished making something like 3-4x minimum wage. Now, in the $15/hr places, you would probably be lucky to make 2x that, IF you are a "proven" machinist with xx years of experience...

edit: to clarify my comment about making 3-4x min wage, that was just upon graduating tool & die class. Since then, I have averaged 4x + minimum wage int he last 6-7 years. (at current FL min wage I should say, higher than it was in IN when I was in school...)

Now it's common to see that 15-20/hr range (sometimes even lower) for experienced machinists. No way someone is going to think the "starter" wage of 10-12/hr could be worth the *carrot* of a few bucks more when you get some experience.

 

[thermite]

... yet Chinese sparkies aren't jumping on a plane to come keep your lights on.

In an odd way, they actually WERE ... That lot I mentioned hasn't seen much of a pay rise in 25 years.

Telco biz went cheap and "postalized" rates, whole country, then went even further to "all-you-can eat" flat monthly fees.

Traffic was being moved so cheaply it cost FAR more to do an itemized BILL that it did to provide the service!

NOW.. it is largely VoIP. But part of that was a backhaul trick. And we DID say "China?"

If I wanted to call my Brother an hour away in Front Royal, VA, it was cheaper if a Hong Kong call reached me, then another reached him .. and they were connected IN Hong Kong!

They have free-market rates.

We have a "monopsony" or oligarchy of re-assembled ATT's monopoly, Sprint, Verizon, Deutsche Post (T-Mobile), and very FEW other carriers left standing.

Example?

Called Mum in Suburban Pittsburgh from Hong Kong. She had food on the stove to go attend to, said she'd call me back. I said nooo.. just lay the phone down, it is cheaper to not pay the call set-up fee.

She thot that daft. Until I explained my rate HKG-USA was only 3 cents a minute.

And that I meant 3 / 100ths of a HONG KONG dollar. 0.2325 US cents a minute, or USD$ 13.95 per HOUR!

Need to speak with the wife in HKG?
I ring her. Hang up right away.

She sees "missed call". Rings me back on the cheap.

So yes. "China" actually IS involved. Even in a phone call.

 

[Guest]

As recent as 5 years ago we still had several people working for us, a girl in the office who could answer phones, emails, keep track of jobs in the shop, check parts to a fair degree and handle shipping and recieving, she did a good job of it for the most part. There wer 3 guys in the shop, 1 that could usually put blanks in the machine, flip them part way through and later take good parts out except when they were not good and he always would mix the bad parts with the good ones before finding out they were bad even though our process said check them first then put them with the others, in 2 years he could not learn that yet he called himself a machinist. One could set up repeat jobs, pull down the job box, load the program, mount the soft jaws, find zero's, take offsets but would take so long getting to that point he would often rush through the prooving it out part and damage the fixtures and special tools, once it was finally running he would usually make good parts but like the other guy he would missload parts then put the bad ones in with the good ones and we would end up with someone helping him sort them out so we could make sure we were making enough for the order. The third guy made setting up repeat jobs he had done several times look like childs play but one he had only done a couple times he would almost every time do something that cost more time than the job was worth or destroy the fizture.

We have tried everything under the sun to put a good team together over the years but recent years there has been a huge shift in the "quality" of the work people are willing to do and this could have a lot to do with folks wanting jobs not careers. I had thought when I started this shop that one day we would hand it off to the team working there for a small monthly payment allowing them to make a good living and we would move on. It didn't seem to matter how much money we offered we could not get them to do the work the way we found works and is profitable. Once we figured plan A wasn't going to happen we switched gears and started dropping the jobs we were keeping to keep people in paychecks and kept the ones that we make good money on while focusing on our own products that would allow her and I to do it our selves. The bottom line is better, we are back on the floor more but most of the stress is gone. Once we sell the old place we will likely drop a few more job shop jobs even though they are good money jobs they take time we could be doing something more fun. Finding good help at any price is going to get a whole lot harder in the next few years from what We have seen. I think more automation and higher taxes to feed them that won't learn is on the horizon.

Moral of the story, no matter how hard you try it is impossible to idiot proof something.

 

[Mike1974]

Moral of the story, no matter how hard you try it is impossible to idiot proof something.

Tell that to the poke a yoke "inventors". They act like we (as machinists) didn't recognize how/when to use a locating/pin/feature/etc...

 

[kustomizer]

I think the new push for higher minimum wage, and the places that have implemented it, plays a big role too. When I was coming up and doing my apprenticeship, I think I finished making something like 3-4x minimum wage. Now, in the $15/hr places, you would probably be lucky to make 2x that, IF you are a "proven" machinist with xx years of experience...

Burger king etc. were supposed to be jobs that helped you learn how to hold down a job so you could move on and start a career, so now you are supposed to "make a living wage" on the first job you find, catch a few burgers as they come off the automated BBQ, play on your cell phone and make a bunch of babbies for someone else to care for, the new American dream. WooHoo, look at us go. Humans may be cave men again in 100 years if they survive that long.

 

[wheelieking71]

If I was a young'n, I'd steer clear of machining.......................

Yep! Good chance if my gig goes sideways, I will buy a van and become a Craigslist handy-man.

 

[Oldwrench]

...a wage comparison from 1993. $18 in 1993, with just short of an average 3% inflation, equals $36 today.

View attachment 302569

That "N/A" notation is more revealing than the wage averages. It indicates there aren't enough examples from which to draw. That tends to support the position that locational overhead dictates wages...until the location prices itself out of the market. New York and San Francisco N/A...what a surprise...

 

[PDW]

Yep! Good chance if my gig goes sideways, I will buy a van and become a Craigslist handy-man.

Yeah. I don't do that stuff but I've all the tools and the knowledge plus I'd ACTUALLY TURN UP WHEN I SAID I WAS GOING TO!

Or at minimum ring/text the client the moment it became obvious that shit had happened and I couldn't.

Problem is I don't need the money and I don't suffer fools gladly so anything involving customer service is out (until I need money anyway).

PDW

 

[hanermo]

Yes !
Absolutely.

The better guys have done everything (or are prepared to learn) and ask salaries in the 80-100k$ range.
And get them.
And they should.

E.g.
Great IT integration in families of parts, or pallets, or job scheduling and manual pallets, can easily make 3x the profits (NOT turnover) per person.
Often 10x or more in profits vs a typical guy.

The shop owners who say I cannot pay 60k$ per year ..
re-calibrate Your thinking.

Think of .. what does the guy need to make for me, so that I can afford to pay him 60k$.
The 3x multiple is reasonable.
Now .. think how can he make me 180k$ per year ...

In Finland, Sweden, Germany, Japan, the machinists make the shop 3-500k per year.
On avg.
They are not better machinists (much), and the US supply chain in bits and parts is far easier and closer.

The problem with market segment is it still changes with locale, for instance.. i've done a TON of work for WL Gore and machine solutions in flagstaff. Medical shit, catheter molds, custom manufacturing equipment for catheters... stints etc.. and what they paid for this comes nowhere close to what some of the top medical companies in orange county would pay. Northern arizona doesnt have a ton of machine shops, therefore machinists are not in demand and thus paid less(they have places like Ruger who pay $12 an hour to load and unload machines 70 hrs a week). So the big medical companies around the area don't pay nearly as much as other companies in the same segment strictly due to locale.

I've been a part of so many industries, from making tiny gun parts, medical equipment, lock and key, robotic NDT scanners, the largest front end loaders in the world to literally machining on NW Nose Cones... i 100% understand that the level of machining changes. But if you want the dude who's done and seen it all and can make you a shitload of money, you're going to pay for him... and he's going to take his lifestyle into account when he asks for what he wants.

 

[thermite]

Tell that to the poke a yoke "inventors". They act like we (as machinists) didn't recognize how/when to use a locating/pin/feature/etc...

ROFL! new building going up. Reflected ceiling plan for lighting gets every damned troffer in exactly the wrong place w/r veiling reflections. I catch it, jack up the architect show him furniture layout drawing vs lighting. It gets fixed before they hang the fixtures.

Meanwhile the Danish immigrant who makes all the lovely fine woods display cases.. is tasked with following that Architect around.

Sure enough, he has designed-in a long rectangle in the floor for an inclined material handling conveyor belt to a warehousing space. Missed the alignment by exactly FOUR FEET.. so they are diamond-sawing the concrete floor so the goods don't just go up the belt and wedge against the ceiling!.

Unreal!

Kjell has finally had enough, goes to the Chairman, "That Gott damned George ... is no Architect! He's only a Brother-in-Law who can't even figure out how to use a f**king piece of TRACING PAPER!"

We got a real Architect then.

First thing he had to do? Have all the urinals in the men's loo raised so we didn't piss right across the top of the flush valves!

Plumbing contractor was SHORT, but that wasn't the reason.
Bugger was a specialist.

Been doing elementary schools for years!