You may have already seen that last week the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte published the highly anticipated 2018 update to their oft-referenced Manufacturing Skills Gap study. The need is even more intense than the last report in 2015.

You can download the full report and the synopsis, and see infographics here:
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/manufacturing/articles/future-of-manufacturing-skills-gap-study.html

And this article is a good summary: http://ww2.cfo.com/people/2018/11/for-manufacturers-skills-gap-keeps-widening/ Some highlights from the article/report:

“The (skills gap) problem is only expected to worsen. As many as 2.4 million jobs may go unfilled over the next 10 years, according to the study. That could put at risk $454 billion in manufacturing value — or 17% of forecasted manufacturing GDP over that period.

However, the new study reveals that the No. 1 cause of the shortage is the “shifting skill set due to the introduction of new advanced technology and automation.” And next is, “negative perception of students/their parents toward the manufacturing industry.”

Rather suddenly, it’s not STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) degrees production workers most need for production work, the study notes. Rather, it’s the ability to program machines on the plant floor.