Recruiting Future Toolmakers

You can help prepare the workforce of tomorrow by recruiting its future toolmakers today. Just show the Career Opportunities Chart (below) to intelligent, motivated prospective toolmakers as early as junior high. Point out to them the high income at a young age, the higher median income than for all workers with a Master's Degree and the significant entrepreneurial opportunities. Equally important, tell them about your own satisfaction with your career in manufacturing.

Charmilles has distributed more than 50,000 copies of earlier versions of the Career Opportunities Chart, starting in 1992. Many machining instructors say that the chart is their single best recruiting tool.

The Chart shown in this column has just been updated to include the most recently available income statistics. In addition to updating the information, we made one important correction. In previous editions, we reported median income for toolmakers but mean incomes for all of the other categories. The median income, with 50 percent of the individuals above the median and 50 percent below the median, is typically dramatically lower than the mean because the impact of the few very high-income individuals is reduced. The median is thus more representative of what the typical individual will actually experience. Accordingly, the incomes in all categories other than "toolmaker" in the new chart are significantly lower than in earlier charts.

The 2001 recession proved the intrinsic stability of careers in our industry. Shops reduced the hours of their skilled workers much more often than they laid off workers. I anticipate that the number of job openings will rapidly rise to the levels that we experienced in the late 1990s.

To obtain copies of the Career Opportunities Chart or paper, CD or live presentations of our PowerPoint presentation "A Career in Toolmaking: The Right Choice for Students, Community and Country," call us at (800) 282-1336, ext. 170 or e-mail harry.moser@charmillesus.com. All of the materials are free and available for you to use in recruiting the workforce of tomorrow.