Competition Showcases Metal-working Industry's Resurgence By
Jim McKay May 6, 2005 -- There are no stadium traffic jams, no adoring fans and no peanut vendors, but metalworking
apprentices from around the country yesterday opened their industry's equivalent of The contestants, a baker's dozen of 13 four-year
apprentices from eight states, are testing their mettle
on lathes, milling machines and grinders in a three-day
competition sponsored by the National Tooling "These guys already know the technical stuff,'' Richard R. Walker, NTMA's educational director, said yesterday as the first leg of the competition was under way. "This is a test of perseverance, innovation and adaptation." It's also a chance to showcase an industry that has a significant presence in southwestern Pennsylvania, plus decent-paying jobs for high school graduates willing to be trained. Locally, leaders in the industry that produces tools, dies and metal molds for manufacturing complain of a shortage of people with specific educational backgrounds and skills in machining and welding. "After a long, hard downturn, it is important to know that manufacturing is stabilizing and starting to return as far as jobs,'' said Barry Maciak, president of New Century Careers, a nonprofit center on the South Side that has trained more than 600 machinists and welders since 1997. "The companies are hungry to find talented youth." About 70 percent of New Century's trainees have landed jobs in Western Pennsylvania at a starting pay of $8.50 to $12.50 an hour with benefits, Maciak said. In a recent survey, graduates of the program reported earning on average $16.60 an hour. Global price pressures and technology advances have required manufacturers over the last
decade to seek more highly skilled workers, said Philip H. Weihl, a vice president and
former manufacturing director of Kennametal Inc., a global tooling maker that is a major
sponsor of the competition. Skilled workers are less likely to be laid off in economic downturns, according to Silvio Baretta, research director for Duquesne University's Center for Competitive Workforce Development. Baretta annually surveys job openings at manufacturers in southwestern Pennsylvania. His most recent study, conducted last fall and released in March, estimated there were 2,560 job openings at manufacturing companies in a 10-county region around Pittsburgh. The best of those opportunities require skills training available either through apprentice programs or vocational, technical or community colleges. "We have an urgent need for machinists in particular,'' said Chuck Guiste, training director for Penn United Technologies in Saxonburg, Butler County, which currently has 103 employee apprentices in the four-year program it operates. The competition came to Pittsburgh this year partly because the companies in the local NTMA chapter have been in the vanguard of a movement to standardize skill requirements for metal-working trades. The effort is aided by a $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Labor Department to the National Institute for Metalworking Skills (NIMS) to develop curriculum guidelines for four metalworking trades -- metal forming, machining, tool and die making and machine building. Apprentices enrolled in NIMS programs can receive national credentials that are portable and can be used by metal-working companies as a standard in hiring, training and promoting employees. James A. Wall, deputy director of the institute, said 35 companies across the country, including about 10 in Pittsburgh, are currently participating in a pilot project. "The industry involvement and interest in this new program has been phenomenal," Wall said. "Companies are starting to get busy again and are recognizing that they need skilled people if they are going to compete for international business." Nationally, companies are putting more emphasis in apprentice programs. The Labor Department , which sets program standards, estimates that manufacturing apprentice programs rose to 17,934 last year from 17,120 in 2003. Craig Dotson, Pittsburgh representative for the federal Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training, said regional manufacturers -- particularly those in the tool and die industry -- are investigating training again after several years of slow business. "What we're seeing right now in Western Pennsylvania is a real resurgence in orders for
some of these companies,'' Dotson said. "They are in the position again to really look for
apprentices." "At the high end, they're making about $13 an hour, '' he said. "But the overtime is probably 30 percent of their full pay. That is what shoots them up there." Manufacturing, however, has a troubled image with young people, their parents, teachers and school guidance counselors who direct more than two-thirds of high school graduates to college, about half of whom eventually drop out. Even the apprentices admit it is hard work. "It's not a walk in the park,'' Wayne Sumpman, of Belle Vernon, an employee of Hamill
Manufacturing Co. of Trafford, the only local contestant in this week's competition. After
four hours of shaping a small block of aluminum to exact blueprint specifications, Sumpman The competition, conducted at training facilities on the South Side and in Saxonburg, concludes tomorrow. The first-prize winner will receive $35,000 to $100,000 in machine tooling equipment for his employer.
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