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Nearly Quarter Million Unfilled Manufacturing Jobs

The skills available among job seekers don’t match the skills that are truly in demand.

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In terms of employment, U.S. manufacturing seems to be living in a separate world from the rest of the U.S. economy. In the rest of the economy, people can’t find jobs. In manufacturing, jobs can’t find people.
 
I am grateful to MMS reader Constantine Kortesis for bringing to my attention a recent Financial Times article that quantifies this disconnect. According to the article, there were 98,000 U.S. manufacturing job openings waiting to be filled at the start of 2009. That number has since risen to 230,000 unfilled jobs. Even though the number of unemployed in the United States increased during that time, there seemed to be no qualified candidates for these positions.
 

Anyone currently involved in manufacturing hiring probably can attest to the reason for these numbers. Namely, the skills available among job seekers don’t match the skills that are truly in demand.  

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