How do you feel about the job market and the economy these days? Positive, negative, mixed?
According to a Harris Poll conducted in February, Americans have mixed feelings about the job market and economy, and the majority of us are concerned about covering our expenses this year—all understandable. Perhaps the most surprising finding is that 48 percent of Americans believe we still are in a recession. (more...)
A&E Custom Manufacturing, Kansas City, Kan., isn't much different from other metal fabricators today. It is looking for the right skilled employees.
"If we could find the people, we would probably add four to five employees," said John Jaixen, A&E's general manager, in December. Specifically, he would bring on talented welders for the second shift and inventory help—if he could find the right people.
Needless to say, A&E isn't alone. In October 2012 the Boston Consulting Group issued a report saying that manufacturing companies had 80,000 to 100,000 open positions for skilled workers. That's dwarfed by the 600,000 openings cited in a 2011 survey from Deloitte Consulting and The Manufacturing Institute. Sure, that's a big disparity, but the fact is that the current manufacturing workforce isn't getting any younger; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the average age of manufacturing workers in the U.S. at 56. (more...)
A 6.2-liter engine, 450 horsepower, zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 4 seconds, and a redesigned exterior that exudes cool from bumper to bumper. It’s not a foreign car with a funny-sounding name and a price tag with as many digits as the federal debt. It’s a domestic model guaranteed to pry some respect, no matter how begrudgingly—and maybe some admiration—from even the most ardent Ford and Chrysler fanatics.
Yes, that’s right. It’s the car known for having fiberglass body panels.
It has been 60 years since General Motors rolled out its first Corvette. From a 2013 perspective, the 1953 model doesn’t look all that sporty, but if you put it up against the sedans of the day, it looks pretty good. Borrowing the name of a lightweight, maneuverable class of warship, GM gave it a moniker that would prove to be iconic and timeless. (more...)
If the headlines from a week ago are to be believed, Congress got its act together and cobbled together a last-minute deal to avoid sending the U.S. economy off the fiscal cliff. Needless to say, I don’t believe it. Yes, superficially, the new legislation prevented the U.S. economy from becoming the equivalent of a high-speed train wreck. However, it didn’t deal with the broad, deep, fundamental problems that are weakening the foundation of the U.S. economy. We have the same problems we had before this legislation passed, and the U.S. economy will eventually go off the rails. It won’t be sudden. It will play out like a painfully slow train wreck. Rather than a couple dozen freight cars piling up in a matter of seconds, it will take a decade or two, but it will happen nonetheless. (more...)
It’s difficult to write today. The events of last Friday, Dec. 14, continue to weigh on my mind and the minds of everyone I know. Looking at all the sweet faces of innocent young children and those brave souls who tried to protect them is almost unbearable. You can’t do so without thinking of your own loved ones and wondering “what if?”
There’s much discussion now about gun control and laws—understandably so—but there also needs to be a real discussion about how to help the many people in our country who suffer some form of mental illness, such as the young shooter who perpetrated this horrific act. (more...)
Among my job duties is scouring the Internet for news of interest to the metal fabricating community. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t run across items related to a topic of particular interest to metal fabricators—the shortage of skilled labor. It seems that every notable publication nationwide has addressed and continues to address the subject that cannot be resolved expediently enough for many manufacturers. So old, yet still timely news.
What’s relatively new in my searches—say in the last year or so—is the proliferation of news items from local media about expanded technical training programs in high schools, community colleges, and universities all across the country. I see these almost daily. It’s a far cry from what I was seeing almost a decade ago when these programs were being decimated. (more...)
UPI Manufacturing, Eagle, Wis., began with a noble thought: How can a company help out U.S. soldiers? The most obvious answer was to start manufacturing to support the war effort. So in 2003 the Dretzka family, who ran Underground Pipeline Inc., jumped into the metal manufacturing business. Since then, it's been a fast ride as the business has expanded.
In the years 2006-2009, UPI was honored with Supplier Excellence Gold Awards from the Defense Supply Center and named Innovative Business Performer of the Year by the Defense Logistics Agency. UPI is now a multimillion dollar business with 65 employees. On Nov. 1, the company hosted an open house to mark the expansion of the building it's been in since 2007; UPI added 36,000 sq. ft., which includes three bays, to its 24,000-sq.-ft. headquarters.
The interesting thing about UPI's skyrocketing growth is that the company really wasn't heavily involved in metal fabricating. It was doing mostly machining work prior to 2010. (The company currently has three vertical machining centers, two horizontal machining centers, and a CNC lathe.) At that time it invested in its first 90,000-PSI Flow waterjet table, which happened to have two cutting beds, allowing one to be loaded while cutting takes place on the other bed. Welding was soon added as the company was bringing in more armor plate work. Today the company has 10 AWS-certified welders capable of working with armor plate, stainless steel, mild steel, and aluminum. (more...)
Much of the East Coast has been bracing itself for Hurricane Sandy while the rest of us wait and wonder. After developing on Oct. 22, it hit Jamaica, Cuba, and the Bahamas, and eventually became the largest recorded hurricane to roil the Atlantic, with a diameter approximately 1,000 miles. Described as a mega-storm by some, it has the potential to disrupt the lives of 60 million people in the U.S. along. That’s 20 percent of the U.S. population. Wow! (more...)
In its weekly press release on Oct. 11, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 339,000 in the week that ended Oct. 6. This represents a one-week drop of 30,000 and the lowest number of initial claims since Feb. 2008. Of course this is good news, but how good is it? A little context might help clarify it. (more...)
Who do you believe the Mayans or the political pundits?
If the Mayans' ancient beliefs are correct, you shouldn't plan anything after Dec. 21 because that's supposedly the end of the world. For those that have their doubts about the prognostication power of ancient people, all they have to do is look ahead to the end of the year as the U.S. government approaches the dreaded "fiscal cliff," the time when a combination of tax cuts suddenly end and $100 billion in federal government spending cuts are enacted. Pundits believe that'll bring any U.S. economic growth to a complete stop and cause a slump that makes the Great Recession look like spring break.
Will it be the end of the world as we know it by the start of 2013?
