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Where are all the Machinists

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tay2daizzo8

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Nov 8, 2013
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north of Bean town
Seriously, I must have interview 40 people in the last 8 months or so and not one bonafide grade A machinist. i know were a smaller shop so we dont have the draw and allure of the big boys,(GE is 15 min up the road one way and Raytheon is 15 minutes the other way) but still what gives. Ive resorted to hiring complete inexperience(as in never stepped foot inside a shop) over the guys who have taken some form of quick training. In my Experience the quys that have a certificate of completion think they are entitled to so much more than entry level. so in hiring no experience ive had to dumb down some of our processes and answer a million dumb questions....will there be a golden unicorn walking thru that door today looking for gainful employment...i sure hope so
 
You are in a tough hiring situation being half way in between GE and Raytheon. We had four major employers in our area and we were about third on the pay scale. We ended up hiring lesser experienced people that would quit and move to the better paying companies after two or three years. It was even worse for the smaller employers.

One way the smaller companies kept people was making the work environment better. Somewhat flexible hours, having some part time positions and air conditioning made a big difference to some employees.
 
Seriously, I must have interview 40 people in the last 8 months or so and not one bonafide grade A machinist. i know were a smaller shop so we dont have the draw and allure of the big boys,(GE is 15 min up the road one way and Raytheon is 15 minutes the other way) but still what gives. Ive resorted to hiring complete inexperience(as in never stepped foot inside a shop) over the guys who have taken some form of quick training. In my Experience the quys that have a certificate of completion think they are entitled to so much more than entry level. so in hiring no experience ive had to dumb down some of our processes and answer a million dumb questions....will there be a golden unicorn walking thru that door today looking for gainful employment...i sure hope so

Bad enough you have to compete with Big Corp. And why would a Machinist even be in Taxatwoshits anyway?

Could be worse. You rank only eighth of the top ten US states folks are abandoning for lower taxes and greater value-for-money, overall:

Why Americans Are Leaving These 10 States And Here's Where They're Going | Bankrate
 
A lot of them have reached retirement age and have done so. Although I have never believed in the grading system, you don't have any 20 year old "grade A" machinist. It took many years be to be even good. I understand your decision to hire people with no experience as it allows you to train them in the way you want.
 
They're somewhere earning more $ in other better, healthier careers and never gave a thought about this line of work.
This industry did all it could to push people out of it and trade schools(what's left of them) have done nothing to bring more in.
Now you have a booming economy once again and the last 2.5-3yrs would likely have soaked up anyone that wanted to work and had some skills.
So, train low skilled labor which at this point are mostly people who don't really want to work, or better yet, automate more.
 
I hear ya.

In my game a lot have retired out. Training of those straight out of high school is virtually non existent. "Oh the manufacture of… is all done in China/India now days".

In the past have found some good staff who are doing their own stuff at home and show the right attributes. Trained them up the way we wanted them.

But yeah, automate where you can. In my game the only real advances are automated cutting and PVC welding. So once the cutter is payed off will be purchasing a bigger welder to compliment the little one I have now.

Reduced the amount of "crap" low paying work one takes on in the busier times.
 
I work for the DOD and we too have an issue of even getting enough applicants to interview let alone qualified people that can BE trained. Have yet to find someone that was worth hiring on the spot at a journeyman rate. We have had an open direct hire authority to hire any qualified journeyman on the spot, we have found 1 machinist in the last 3 years.

We offer a 4 year paid apprenticeship program that results in you getting an AA degree as well as journeyman certification, upon completion employees make ~$31/hr and we still have a hard time finding candidates that can pass the tests, show up and actually want to be employed in this trade.

Good luck!
 
Seriously, I must have interview 40 people in the last 8 months or so and not one bonafide grade A machinist. i know were a smaller shop so we dont have the draw and allure of the big boys,(GE is 15 min up the road one way and Raytheon is 15 minutes the other way) but still what gives. Ive resorted to hiring complete inexperience(as in never stepped foot inside a shop) over the guys who have taken some form of quick training. In my Experience the quys that have a certificate of completion think they are entitled to so much more than entry level. so in hiring no experience ive had to dumb down some of our processes and answer a million dumb questions....will there be a golden unicorn walking thru that door today looking for gainful employment...i sure hope so

Hope to get this in before the dozen or so members here that INSIST there are tons of machinist out there...

I've found there are not too many left that are actual machinist. Lots of button pushers, but not much skill. I remember even waaay back (LoL) when I was doing my apprenticeship my class was full of clowns that constantly were talking about how they were breaking sh*t at work, or breaking machines, or how hard they partied. :rolleyes5:

Good luck! I know we have been looking for just a semi-experienced operator/setup person and not finding them....
 
in the 1980's our education system or maybe it was the Department of Education in Washington, who knows, but in the USA they decided we could ship machinist jobs overseas and let them do them and we could buy it from them as we would just "service" them or buy a new one. When I was a kid they taught machine shop, drafting and woodworking skills in high schools and as the bureaucracy decided the skilled trades were a thing of the past less and less machinists were available because they stopped teaching skilled trades in schools, and sold the machinery in the schools. Then the recession hit and many shops closed and were auctioned off to Asia where they had the skilled people. In the 90's a MN company I worked with opened a plant down to Mexico and after 5 years they moved back as they said productivity in Mexico sucked. Another company who moved to China discovered they built a factory down the road identical to his to rob his technology. We need to wake up and save this country and encourage training here in the USA and not complain about how much it costs as we are screwing ourselves in the long run.

A very good friend of mine who has long passed away. Owned a used machine dealership in Minneapolis who was convinced that the bureaucracy was being controlled by folks who said manufacturing caused pollution and we had to stop polluting mother earth so we shipped our good paying jobs, good paying union jobs, non union and our manufacturing base overseas. He wrote hundreds of letters to politicians in Washington and locally warning them that if there was a crisis and we needed machines to make weapons or components for weapons we were screwed. You wouldn't believe all the huge machine tools that left the country and went to Korea and China.

No Machines and no Machinists to run them. Now we are waking up and you all need to start voting in school board members who will bring back teaching the skilled trades in high schools, open more Vo-Tech High Schools, Vote for candidates who want to employ Americans and not ship our jobs overseas, create good paying $31.00 per hour jobs again and not $12.00 per hour button pushers who sit on their cell phones texting all day long. I hate to say it, but Buy American when you can. We need more skilled tradesmen plus engineers. I suppose I started something now, but in my opinion that is why their are no machinists. With our educators teaching Machinist trades and also teach ways not to pollute mother earth we should be able to become great again. Another thing we need to put man on the moon again, explore the oceans, explore space, drill for oil in the USA so we can create a manufacturing base again.
 
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in the 1980's our education system or maybe it was the Department of Education in Washington, who knows in the USA decided we could ship machinist jobs overseas and let them do them and we could buy it from them as we would just "service" them or buy a new one. When I was a kid they taught machine shop, drafting and woodworking skills in high schools and as the bureaucracy decided the skill trades were a thing of the past less and less machinists were available because they stopped teaching skilled trades in schools, sold the machinery. Then the recession hit and many shops closed and were auctioned off to Asia where they had the skilled people.

A very good friend of mine who has long passed away. Owned a used machine dealership in Minneapolis who was convinced that the bureaucracy was being controlled by folks who said manufacturing caused pollution and we had to stop polluting mother earth so we shipped our good paying jobs and our manufacturing base overseas. He wrote hundreds of letters to politicians in Washington and locally warning them that if there was a crisis and we needed machines to make weapons or components for weapons we were screwed. You wouldn't believe all the huge machine tools that left the country and went to Korea and China.

No Machines and no Machinists to run them. Now we are waking up and you all need to start voting in school board members who will bring back teaching the skilled trades in high schools, open more Vo-Tech High Schools, Vote for candidates who want to employ Americans and not ship our jobs overseas, create good paying $31.00 per hour jobs again and not $12.00 per hour button pushers who sit on their cell phones texting all day long. I hate to say it, but Buy American when you can. We need more skilled tradesmen plus engineers. I suppose I started something now, but in my opinion that is why their are no machinists. With our educators teaching Machinist trades and also teach ways not to pollute mother earth we should be able to become great again. Another thing we need to put man on the moon again, explore the oceans, explore space, drill for oil in the USA so we can create a manufacturing base again.


You have hit the nail on the head.
 
They're somewhere earning more $ in other better, healthier careers and never gave a thought about this line of work.
This industry did all it could to push people out of it and trade schools(what's left of them) have done nothing to bring more in.
Now you have a booming economy once again and the last 2.5-3yrs would likely have soaked up anyone that wanted to work and had some skills.
So, train low skilled labor which at this point are mostly people who don't really want to work, or better yet, automate more.

What a great post....absolutely spot on. When I was in tech school in the 1980's, in rochester mn, we had top of the line equipment, donated by local businesses, the biggest donor was IBM. Then sometime in the early 2000's the school closed. Around 2013 it was opened again with an instructor whom I formerly worked with. That lasted about 2 school years and they closed again for lack of funding and dwindling enrollment. Currently in that school, one machine that is rusting is a brand new Bridgeport 3 axis cnc mill. The former instructor was there about a year ago and said the mill is in bad condition. Wasteful!
 
in the 1980's our education system or maybe it was the Department of Education in Washington, who knows in the USA decided we could ship machinist jobs overseas and let them do them and we could buy it from them as we would just "service" them or buy a new one. When I was a kid they taught machine shop, drafting and woodworking skills in high schools and as the bureaucracy decided the skill trades were a thing of the past less and less machinists were available because they stopped teaching skilled trades in schools, sold the machinery. Then the recession hit and many shops closed and were auctioned off to Asia where they had the skilled people.

A very good friend of mine who has long passed away. Owned a used machine dealership in Minneapolis who was convinced that the bureaucracy was being controlled by folks who said manufacturing caused pollution and we had to stop polluting mother earth so we shipped our good paying jobs, good paying union jobs, non union and our manufacturing base overseas. He wrote hundreds of letters to politicians in Washington and locally warning them that if there was a crisis and we needed machines to make weapons or components for weapons we were screwed. You wouldn't believe all the huge machine tools that left the country and went to Korea and China.

No Machines and no Machinists to run them. Now we are waking up and you all need to start voting in school board members who will bring back teaching the skilled trades in high schools, open more Vo-Tech High Schools, Vote for candidates who want to employ Americans and not ship our jobs overseas, create good paying $31.00 per hour jobs again and not $12.00 per hour button pushers who sit on their cell phones texting all day long. I hate to say it, but Buy American when you can. We need more skilled tradesmen plus engineers. I suppose I started something now, but in my opinion that is why their are no machinists. With our educators teaching Machinist trades and also teach ways not to pollute mother earth we should be able to become great again. Another thing we need to put man on the moon again, explore the oceans, explore space, drill for oil in the USA so we can create a manufacturing base again.

Excellent post Richard......in this part of the state, southeastern, there is so much work and the shortage of skilled labor is so bad, employers are resorting to old style advertising. Forget facebook and all the social media, monster, indeed, etc is not working. Employers are putting signs along busy roads every couple hundred yards advertising for hiring. The other day I saw a television ad for a company, and that surprised me because I hadn't even seen that during the 'good' times. Desperate.
 
Richard must be about my age. When I went to high school it was not specifically a vocational school, but they did understand that many kids wouldn't go to college. We had a huge auto shop, machine shop, drafting classes and electronics lab. Naturally we also had a great photography club with a well equipped darkroom, a rocket club and all sort of other hands-on extracurricular activities. I'm curious how much, if any, is still there.
 
in my experience its people hiring are too picky looking for the perfect person who needs no training and
.
many places give yearly pay raises. that is if you want to keep people you have to pay enough thats its easily above starting pay rates other places are offering. nobody going to try to get hired at another company at same or less pay and have to start out again as the new guy worrying about a new boss that maybe wants to fire the new person if not perfect. hear all the time people get fired after a few weeks cause they are not perfect or boss has unreasonable expectations. you get fired it can take years to get over that. obviously people hiring want to know what happened on your last job
.
i know many older people say 50 or older often have trouble getting hired too as people hiring want to pay apprentice level pay. many a interview has ended asking for $20./hr, and for those who dont keep up with inflation basically starting pay and experienced pay has been creeping up over the years.
.
and some companies base pay is say $20./hr but offer benefits like 6% 401k match of total pay including overtime which many companies offer a lot of overtime. literally a cnc operator can be making $70,000 to $100,000/yr with the benefits
.
so a job paying $28./hr with no overtime and no 401k match can be paying $30,000 less per year than a $23./hr job with the 6% match and a lot of overtime
.
some companies are hiring new people and starting apprentice programs working with local colleges. like many apprentice programs were stopped for so long it seems like its a new ideal now.
 
They're somewhere earning more $ in other better, healthier careers and never gave a thought about this line of work.
This industry did all it could to push people out of it and trade schools(what's left of them) have done nothing to bring more in.
Now you have a booming economy once again and the last 2.5-3yrs would likely have soaked up anyone that wanted to work and had some skills.
So, train low skilled labor which at this point are mostly people who don't really want to work, or better yet, automate more.

Awesome post and very true......I've talked with a lot of people over the years and one of the main problems is the pay. Around this area anyway, you just can't make a good living as a machinist or toolmaker. I was making more (in this same area) in 1998 than now, including very affordable health insurance back then.
Just recently, within the last couple of months, I left my job because I decided I will not do this work anymore, for someone else, for this lower pay. Right now I am working part time in my own shop, serving four entrepreneurs and it sure is rewarding. The other part of the day I do fun things with my kids while they are on their summer vacation from school. After I quit, I told myself never again for someone else....
 
so in hiring no experience ive had to dumb down some of our processes and answer a million dumb questions....will there be a golden unicorn walking thru that door today looking for gainful employment...i sure hope so

Welcome to a dumbed-down population. A population like that is easier to control. They don't know much about their rights and are lazy. A rich country does that. Probably need to look at immigrants. They are so happy to be here. One hint of being deported and you have a dedicated worker for boom-boom time.

Look at the difference in a magazine like Scientific American. Thirty years ago there were very technical articles. Today the articles are written for a 6th grader.

When you find a newbie and train him then they do things your way. Up until the time they leave for another company. But on the other hand, you might get a guy who was trained at a big company close by and is sick of the big company culture. Then you have it made.
 
in my experience its people hiring are too picky looking for the perfect person who needs no training and
.
many places give yearly pay raises. that is if you want to keep people you have to pay enough thats its easily above starting pay rates other places are offering. nobody going to try to get hired at another company at same or less pay and have to start out again as the new guy worrying about a new boss that maybe wants to fire the new person if not perfect. hear all the time people get fired after a few weeks cause they are not perfect or boss has unreasonable expectations. you get fired it can take years to get over that. obviously people hiring want to know what happened on your last job
.
i know many older people say 50 or older often have trouble getting hired too as people hiring want to pay apprentice level pay. many a interview has ended asking for $20./hr, and for those who dont keep up with inflation basically starting pay and experienced pay has been creeping up over the years.
.
and some companies base pay is say $20./hr but offer benefits like 6% 401k match of total pay including overtime which many companies offer a lot of overtime. literally a cnc operator can be making $70,000 to $100,000/yr with the benefits
.
so a job paying $28./hr with no overtime and no 401k match can be paying $30,000 less per year than a $23./hr job with the 6% match and a lot of overtime
.
some companies are hiring new people and starting apprentice programs working with local colleges. like many apprentice programs were stopped for so long it seems like its a new ideal now.[/QUOTE

In the late 1990's a local company started an apprentice program with the local tech school and they've had quite a number of people that have been in the program. But in spite of that, this company is still constantly advertising for cnc machinists, etc. After all these years they continue to have a shortage. They are the big blue based in se mn.
 
obviously if even 10% of workforce is illegal aliens not paying income tax and you now get employers using everify to have to prove employees are legal USA citizens than the illegals not hired have to be replaced with millions of USA citizens
.
some states especially near the border there are many illegals working and not paying income taxes. and often they get less than legal pay rate and or taken advantage of cause being illegals.
.
no politicians seem to mention this illegals not paying taxes. if you allow increased legal immigration and the permanent residents get higher pay cause legal and not taken advantage off and they pay income tax obviously it can lower the income taxes of those of us who have been legally working and paying our taxes as legal acting people do.
.
takes a second for a businessman to figure get more people paying taxes by lower the % of people not paying their legal taxes (illegally here and working illegally not paying taxes) that one way to balance the federal budget
.
and its more humane to let people legally come here become citizens pay taxes and get SS after minimum 10 years working than to keep a illegal underclass being under paid sometimes even below minimum wage (not paying taxes too) and taken advantage of for the rest of their life. in many ways hiring illegals is actually a form of ? could go by many names none are nice, its definitely not moral to under pay people for the rest of their lives here. let become US citizens or let them leave the USA
 
employers need to start apprentice programs and hire kids out of school. its not unheard of. or hire those in their 20's and even 30's who are interested in apprentice program
.
literally i got hired out of high school
 
employers need to start apprentice programs and hire kids out of school. its not unheard of. or hire those in their 20's and even 30's who are interested in apprentice program
.
literally i got hired out of high school

Yes, the company I mentioned, over the years people of all age groups have gone through the apprentice program, it's not just for the 'young folk'.
 
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