Don’t Blame A ‘Skills Gap’ For Lack Of Hiring In Manufacturing

The problem with this kind of article is when the author doesn't understand the industry they are talking about and can't differentiate between seemingly similar datasets:

Rather than degrees or licenses, what employers say they are struggling to find are workers with industry-specific skills, such as how to program the machines that do much of the physical work in modern factories. But according to a new paper by economists Andrew Weaver and Paul Osterman, companies looking for workers with specialized computing skills don’t have any more trouble filling their vacancies than anyone else. (Advanced math was more of a stumbling block.)

Those are two different things. The first people being interviewed are talking about machine operators (i.e. guys who operate lathes and CNCs). This is a skilled trade and it's true that machine operators are getting older and aren't being replaced by younger people. A lot of good companies have apprenticeship programs specifically to train the next generation of operators.

The "computing skills" positions are totally different positions and are easy to fill because those jobs just require some kid out of college who did well in math. Those are desk jobs! Stuff like QC techs. These are easy jobs to fill because all you need to know is how to fill in an Excel form. You don't need experience in operating a multi-million dollar machine.

I'll assume that it's the author's fault for grossly misusing the data from studies that look at different aspects of manufacturing. I would hope that industry surveys are not so oblivious.

/r/Economics Thread Link - fivethirtyeight.com