Machinist help wanted ads

I have a good job but i am bored where i am at.

I sent out my resume to 15 places, 12 called back within 3 days.

Out of the 12 there were about 4 good shops, i.e. clean, newer machines, not aerospace etc...

Out of the 4 i have interviewed at all but one thats tomorrow.

2 of them say something about having "top wages and benefits" but when i go there and they ask what i am making now they say "thats to high for here". One place told me i was making a buck more than his lead and the benefits were crap. Why advertise like this when it is not true?

Aerospace shops are having bidding wars right now for guys, some offering $1000 signing bonus. I do not want to work aerospace, its way too up and down.

I have got an offer from every place, the one realized they had no chance but still wanted me.

All of them are saying the same thing to me. "We cant find good help."

The position i am applying for is lead or programmer.

It is a very wierd dynamic right now, people are fighting over good machinists but they don't/cant want to pay. There very few new people coming into the field. Are machinists going to price themselves out of work in the future?

Good machinists will always be needed...in some capacity. Control manufacturers are going to put programmers out of business sooner or later. Fewer places are going with G&M coding and sending a program direct from CAD. Eventually, CAD will get in line, and dispose of the extraineous G&M code that gets edited out due to cycle time. Our only hope imho is that the software designers don't sell out to one or two companies. As long as there is direct competition between multiple designers, the control manufactures will have a choice...and a preference.

I got the same problem only I run manual machines.

Another thought...

I left a good but boring job 5 months ago. Top earner in the place. My situation is different, I'm sure.

Anyway, new place sent me to new control school for a week. Three of 10 co-students wanted nothing to do with the G&M coding...conversational only! These guys were clueless to insert wear, grade, etc. Nothing can equal experience of the "hands on" stuff.

Krazyglue, would you have bothered to go for an interview if they said their wages were mediocre, and benefits stunk? LOL. I would like to get a job closer to home. Right now I commute 50 miles one way. Have for 22 years. Went for an interview last December at a place 6 miles from my home, but it would have meant a 24% cut in pay.

Is the company I work for the only one in the machining industry that simply refuses to give out raises? The last employee hired came from Burger King. At least he knows how to fry the tools! Haha. We can't get knowledgeable employees. Apparently because of the low wages being offered. Every time we renew the health insurance policy our cost goes up and benefits go down.

Sure makes my job, and a couple others that know what they are doing, a lot tougher. I didn't know babysitters got paid this much. Maybe I AM being overpaid.

Metlhed, lucky for me our company doesn't use conversational programming lathes. We have several brands in the shop, and repeat jobs might run on any one of several. It is faster to modify the format to run in the other lathe and download the program. Or simply run it through a different post processor if already in MasterCam.

One thing controls (or software programs) can't do is parametric programming. I've got some master programs where the set-up persons enters in a few dimensions off the print, and hits cycle start. Voila!

I really could "talk" about this all day, but I don't have the time...

One thing that really kills me is when I read an article in a trade magazine or in the newspaper that states how great the manufacturing field is. They go on and on about what a great profession it is and how there are so many job openings. Makes me want to puke.

Another thing that kills me is I have this one customer that always states: "just charge us double, like you always do".

I honestly believe there are a lot of shops around me bidding out at probably 35 bucks an hour.

Good luck finding decent help when you charge that little...

Sure is funny that I guess I am charging twice as much as some of my competitors, yet I am swamped with work...

Another thing that used to kill me is I USED to have this friend that I swear was half retarded, but was a union carpenter, and used to complain all of the time that he ONLY made 26 bucks an hour. Maybe if he would have been more concerned about his wife and daughter and a lot less concerned about having a girlfriend on the side, he might actually have some money... When I had a "real" job, he always made a lot more money than what I did, but I always seemed to have so much more...

Well, I can go on and on, I know that I really didn't answer your question, but I did touch on a couple of important factors.

Too many dumb-ass machine shop owners are either just too stupid to pay a decent wage, or just too stupid to quote a decent price. I have been outbid on cnc production jobs I was only getting about $40 per hour on, running flat out, with the best machines, programming, and tooling money can buy. The dumb ****s can have it for that. Anything to keep a machine running. Run the whole industry into the ground.
I believe we contract machine shops, on the whole, have whored ourselves out over the years, much to our current and future demise. If every cnc shop in this country would quote $60 per hour and up, all the cheapskate buyers would have to pay it. After all, China can't do it all...not yet anyway.

i work for a rather large aero company, and they dont pay well at all either. also everybody in the shop is classified as a fabricator, not cool. but when you look at the fact that we have a "programmer" that never ran a machine and cant get a rectangle sheet metal part with no holes right the first three times, who gets a big fat paycheck. i dont see the machining business comming bact to america. it will probably get so big overseas that all the unions will go over there and ruin their economy like they did ours, then we will get it back, or we could all go to work for walmart, wont be long before they have their own machine shops in superwalmart next to the sams choice proctologist.

Recently moving across the country and searching for jobs I have seen just this. I don't have a lot of experience, 2.5 years or so, plus a degree. However, at all the places I interviewed most were close on wages when they offered me a job. The exception was a place that made very high precision stuff, .0002 was common. They offered me 12.00/hour with crappy benefits and not that great of a place to work at. Upper management looked like A-holes, ect. This was in southern California. Heck, in Indiana I could have found a job bringing home more then 12 and hour after taxes. I almost started laughing and knew right then that I had just wasted my afternoon.

They should just ask " for how little money are you willing to work for? " They simply always pay you as little as they possibly have too and even then its like you owe them the world, don't forget to say thanks....

Plenty of cnc shops throwing kids out of high school on the machines. They simply don't want to pay for skills. They turn out a lot of scrap. Its funny and sad at the same time. On top of that they make sure they won't learn and get any better, because if they did they'd want more money. Same goes with "most" customers. They go for the lowest price, nobody cares what the part is going to be like. Then they wonder why they can't meet any deadlines or why things fail.

I must say I have had a few half decent offers in my area, but I simply don't want to work for anyone around here anymore. I just run my own little home shop, all manual equipment. CNC is way too cut throat and way too high overhead. I bet I make more per hour doing manual work than most cnc shops around here.

I'd most likely leave this trade before working for another shop. I love machining and welding but I tend to hate the way this industry works. I know a lot of people agree with that.

I'm looking for help.
I bid jobs at $84 an hour and am 22 weeks out right now.
I have given my lead I think $6 in raises in a year and a half.
Just bought a second seat of Mastercam. Looking for a larger shop and am going to spend in the neighborhood of $500k in the next two years on new machines. Gross sales have more than doubled every year for the last three years.
I don't try to cheap out on labor. It's what has allowed me to get where we are today. You make me money and I'll make you money. I pay profit shareing on each job in my shop. Hell, we even have medical.
Course, it IS over here in Kitsap county....
No traffic, congestion, crowds...
It's tough.

Living here in sunny southern California heres the scoop. I have been working and running for over 15 years Prototype @ R@D shops. The companies are multi billion dollar companies. The salaries and benefits are second to none.
I program and run cnc mills and lathes. Due to a down size at one of my last employers almost 2 years ago. They are in the cell phone business.
Very competitive. We went from 3000 people to I guess 500 or so. This is what my fishing buddy tells me. He is 1 of 3 fixture designers left. They sold the factory to the Chinease etc...
I had mutiple job offers.I was offered work for more money at medical companies etc... I ended up working at a job shop (go Figure) for a year.
I was the main programmer resposible for 9 Haas mills. Setup sheets for operators, trouble shoot the whole taco. The guys running the machines were from Tijuana,Mexico making minimum wage.
I made everything dummy proof. They just had to set up and push the go button. The job shops want someone to do it all and pay the rest of the crew crap. Which accounts for mucho SCRAP!!!
First article was always a hassle. To make a long story short. I landed on my feet at a small medical company. 29 people. I started a new shop for them from scratch which I have done at the other big companies. The pay and benefits are great.401k,health, dental, eye,life, disability etc... Since being here I still get job offers.
But you are right. I laughed in more then one persons face interviewing me. You want my expertise you pay. I don't care if the last guy you paid was cheaper. He was cheaper for a reason. I have mucho experience. The companies are out there. Don't sell yourself short.
Stay away from job shops. They suck. Bunch of cheap bastards.They pay the main guys but expect you to bail them out every chance they get. Work in the Engineering field like I have been and you will be happy. It is true the X generation wants no part of Machining. The US is letting in toolmakers from other counties due to a shortage of experienced Machinist, CNC programmers etc.

This X gen (barely) wants to learn it all!

Michael

PBMW i would check you out but that would be a craptastic commute.

Turns out i interviewed at one to many places and the current place of employment found out i was interviewing.... small world.

I got a 10% raise and better work, they understood i was bored and ready to move on. Its not like i did not like the company.

The cream will rise apparently.