Thread: Surprise! Blue collar jobs are coming back

Surprise! Blue collar jobs are coming back

By Chris Isidore, senior writer
September 27, 2010: 1:22 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As the labor market continues to struggle, one surprising bright spot stands out amid the list of battered industries -- factory jobs.

Manufacturing employment began its decline long before the recession, losing jobs every year since 1998. But since the start of this year, there's been a 1.6% gain in manufacturing jobs -- about twice the pace of growth in other private sector jobs.

Even if manufacturing hiring stays flat the rest of this year, the industry is poised to post its biggest percentage gain in jobs since 1994.

"In 2008 and 2009, manufacturers would not hire," said Norbert Ore, head of the Institute for Supply Management's survey of manufacturers. "Today they're willing to fill openings, willing to hire. Here and there, they're adding a shift."

About 26% of manufacturing companies surveyed by ISM reported adding staff, compared to only 5% cutting workers. Only 13% of service sector employers said they were adding workers, while 18% are still cutting jobs. And the ISM index for manufacturing employment stands at a 35-year high.

Job placement firms say they're seeing more business from manufacturers as they ramp up production.

"Manufacturing is very robust for us right now," said Donna Carroll, vice president with Adecco. "Skilled machinists and machine operators in some places are getting tougher to come by."

Jeremy Grimm is one of those skilled workers. The 31-year old Canton, Ohio, resident was recently hired by The Timken Co.'s wheel bearing plant in his hometown. He had last worked in manufacturing 10 years ago, when he got laid off from a local steel fabricating plant.

"When I was a kid, that's all you had around here was manufacturing, but when I got laid off, I figured that was it, that it was gone for good from this part of the country," he said.

"But now factories around here seem to be booming again. Without a doubt, I think manufacturing is back."

0:00 /6:08Dodging a double-dip
Some factories are also recalling workers they had previously laid off. La Dove Inc., a hair care products maker based in Miami Lakes, Fla., is also hiring again.

"In the last two to three months we've seen a lot of new customer requests," said Mike Bass, executive vice president of La Dove. "We felt it was time to pick things up to get ready for the business that is coming."

Bass said when his company recently added almost 10% to its factory floor staff, many of those hired were former employees who'd been laid off during the recession.

"I think they were a little surprised, obviously very happy," he said.

Jobs coming back, but not fast enough
The unemployment rate for manufacturing workers has also shown much greater improvement than for workers overall, dropping to 9.5% in August from 13% in December. That compares to a far more modest improvement to 9.6% from 10% for the overall labor force.

"There was an idea out there that all the manufacturing jobs lost during the recession were gone and never coming back. That's not true," said Heidi Shierholz, labor economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-supported think tank. "Once people started buying stuff again, some of them had to come back."

But manufacturing employment, like most sectors, still has a long way to go to fully recover from the anemic job losses caused by the recession, Shierholz said.

"It's not a surprise that manufacturing jobs are coming back faster than [jobs] in the overall economy," she said. "The disappointment is they should be coming back faster than they have."

But better times could be ahead.

Gains so far have been concentrated in four industries -- automotive, fabricated metals, primary metals and machinery -- said Dave Huether, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers.

He's forecasting that the recovery of demand will spread to other goods next year, with a corresponding improvement in hiring.

"Let's say we're up 160,000 manufacturing jobs this year. I think we'll have increases well more than double that for each of the next few years. We probably won't get back to pre-recession employment, but we'll get close."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/27/news/ec ... gletoolbar

hmmmm

Hard time buying this

Why pay Americans a living wage , union bennys in some cases
Put up with all the Govt BS regulations (they are staggering)


Oh , I get it

They are hiring illegal aliens and paying them dirt

In my wifes home business , we can buy a pair of shoes from China for pennies , You cannot even find a domestic manufacturer for the same item.
I actually checked into the manufacturing end of it here in the states , You would need millions of $$$ just to get through the govt red tape, and years to pass inspections , EPA , and a million other regs
Why bother ,

And yet its a billion dollar business

Oil workers among top-paid blue-collar jobs

Who needs a college degree to get by? Not these workers

Elevators repairers and installers average $67,950 a year and can top out around $98,190.

By Susan Adams
updated 6/18/2010 7:16:20 AM ET

The oil industry may be a magnet for controversy in the U.S. right now, with crude continuing to gush from BP's ruined deep water well in the Gulf of Mexico, but according to Labor Department statistics, oil workers are among the best-paid blue-collar employees there are.

Two oil-related positions make our ranking of the top 10 best-paying blue-collar jobs. Oil and gas rotary drill operators pull down an average of $59,560 a year, with the top 10 percent earning more than $89,100. Petroleum pump system and refinery operators make just a little less, averaging $56,990. The top 10 percent of them earn $78,020.

To compile our list, we combed through data gathered annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the Labor Department. The BLS culls its information from surveys it mails to businesses, and it releases its Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Data in May. The figures are for 2009.

What defines a blue-collar job? The American Heritage Dictionary says, "Of or relating to wage earners, especially as a class, whose jobs are performed in work clothes and often involve manual labor." We took that definition and excluded work that is largely managerial or supervisory.

Some of the professions on our list require extensive training and apprenticeships that can last as long as four years. For instance, rotary drill operators in the oil industry don't need college degrees, but they either have associate degrees from community college or do apprenticeship training with companies that operate drilling rigs, like the now notorious Transocean. The apprenticeships last six to 12 months, says Richard Ranger, a senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute in Washington. The same goes for petroleum pump system operators, he adds.

To become an elevator installer or repairer takes an apprenticeship of at least four years, says Robert Caporale, the editor of Elevator World magazine. The training also involves evening classes and examinations. The National Association of Elevator Contractors offers a program that includes distance learning and on-the-job training, lasts four years and costs a total of $16,000.

"We used to be called a bastard trade," says Richard Kennedy, the association's president-elect, "because you need to know a little bit of so many disciplines." He explains: "You need to know mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, structural engineering. You have to be extremely proficient at electricity, at computerized controls. You have to be a plumber, a welder, a carpenter." That makes it unsurprising that elevator installers are at the very top of our list, earning an average salary of $67,950. The top 10 percent of them earn more than $98,190.

Other jobs on the list include repairers at power substations, who have an average annual salary of $67,700, and boilermakers, who make $56,680.

Transportation inspectors, who earn an average of $61,110, are also on the tally. The top 10 percent of them draw six-figure salaries.

Commercial divers, who pull in an average of $58,060, don't literally have blue collars, of course — unless they wear blue wetsuits.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37690862/

Wanted: 400,000 truck drivers

By Chris Isidore, senior writer
June 9, 2010: 6:43 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) --

Can't find a job? Maybe it's time to take your search on the road.

The U.S. trucking industry will need to hire about 200,000 drivers by the end of this year, and will need to add another 200,000 by the end of 2011, according to the state of logistics report from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

A number of factors will feed into this need for drivers, including retirements, tougher safety regulations designed to get drivers with bad records off the road and the need to replace drivers who were laid-off during the recession, according to the report. Overall the industry lost almost 150,000 driving jobs since the start of 2008.

Rosalyn Wilson, the author of the report that was sponsored by Penske Logistics, said that even with continued high unemployment, motor carriers are going to face a challenge finding drivers needed over the next year and half.

"It's not a very attractive profession," she said. "People want jobs, but they also want their quality of life, to be home with their family at the end of the work day."

The median pay for a trucker stood at $37,730 in May of 2009, and Wilson said that wage probably fell in the last year as miles driven were reduced. But more miles and the driver shortage are likely to increase wages in the years ahead, she said.

0:00 /1:40Out of a job? Learn to drive a truck

Wilson said during the recession trucking companies were in the unusual position of having significantly more job applicants than they had positions, as laid-off truckers and construction workers applied for jobs. But that surplus of applicants has started to wane with a pick-up in the economy in recent months.

"We're already seeing shortages in some markets," she said. "As traffic starts to climb, we're likely to see the shortages get worse."

The forecast is for only a 4% to 6% growth in freight traffic for trucks this year and next, which Wilson says is a conservative estimate. Typically freight grows by about 10% coming out of a recession, she said.

"How much of a driver shortage we have will depend on how much the economy picks up," she said.

But she said that broader demographic factors will make driver shortages an issue for years to come, regardless of the strength of the economy. About one in six are age 55 or above.

"We're going to need 1 million drivers in next 15 years just to deal with replacing retirees and the normal growth of freight," she said.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/09/news/ec ... /index.htm

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