What did visitors tell us at IMTS?
One shop owner said, “I’ve got a ton of orders, but I can’t find the people to make the product.”
Another said, “I wish I could find a magic machine that makes product and runs itself.”
I don’t have the answers, but I will try to define the problems so the answers may become more apparent.
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There are millions of people in this country looking for a job that pays an adequate living. One survey found that college students expect to make about $58,000 a year one year after graduating. My guess is that young people without a degree hope to reach $58,000 to $70,000 within 5 to 10 years in a job or profession.
From a job competition standpoint, let’s start with fast food. In Chicago, the starting pay for a Chipotle employee is advertised at 16.75-17.75 per hour, while McDonald’s pays roughly $16 to $20, or about $34,000 to $41,000 a year working full time.
Would a Gen Z worker without college figure that fast food is a better leg up toward that $58,000 to $70,000 job than learning a complicated skill in a machining firm, where the workforce tends to be older and the surroundings somewhat dirtier?
Fast food also offers a clear path for advancement, which can be appealing to a hard worker. A Chipotle crew member can move up to shift leader, then apprentice, then general manager, a job advertised at $55,000 to $77,500 plus quarterly bonuses. Chipotle’s top general managers can reach $100,000.
For a 20-year-old looking at a $25 machining job with unclear advancement in an unfamiliar field, it is not hard to see why fast food is a simple and easy choice.
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Another possibility for a youngster without college who shows a mechanical inclination is training to be an HVAC technician.
In Illinois, the typical machinist makes about $28 an hour. In the Chicago area, the typical HVAC technician makes about $37.50. An experienced union pipe fitter, who does much of the HVAC work in Chicago, earns well over $50 an hour and close to $100 an hour counting benefits.
Noah Graff is currently running a poll on LinkedIn asking whether a company would pay a machine operator $50 an hour if he or she were the only person who could reliably run a vital, lucrative job. That’s more than a typical HVAC technician makes, but less than an experienced union pipe fitter. So far 29 people have voted yes and 24 no.
It is starting to look like the $30 to $40 per hour pay ceilings common at machining companies are becoming outdated, given what we now pay for groceries, housing, and a meal out.
The other issue people brought up at IMTS was the cost of new machines. Should a company pay $300,000 for a new Swiss CNC, $500,000 for a CNC Davenport Hybrid, or $2-4 million for a large CNC multi-spindle if operators of older cam machines can make most of the same parts? An operator-setup person making $100,000 to $150,000 a year may look like a bargain, even with the lucrative depreciation allowances on new machines.
There is no “magic machine” or “magic wage point” to solve the problems of poorly run firms, lousy marketing, and undesirable employees. But if McDonald’s can find a never-ending supply of workers, and HVAC companies can hire people already trained locally, I think there are plenty of ways to approach the “I can’t hire good people” problem. At least until AI and humanoid robots move us in a totally different direction than $50 an hour.
Question: Who do you blame for your hiring problems? What are you doing about them?
