Skills shortage on the minds of injection molding executives

 Detroit —  The skills shortage is always a top concern of North American injection molders, but the issue seems to have only gotten worse since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Top molding executives talked about the issue and how they're dealing with it at the recent Injection Molding & Design show in Detroit.

Jason Travitz, senior injection molding process instructor at the American Injection Molding Institute, explained that he stumbled into plastics in college. Today he teaches hands-on injection molding, "working with a lot of folks that are coming in from the shop floor, although we teach some higher-level classes as well."

Travitz touted an apprenticeship program that molders in the Erie, Pa., area started as a model for other areas suffering from a shortage of skilled workers.

"From what I see, when companies can't find people to hire, I see them going to LinkedIn and poaching people from other companies vs. growing their own talent from the ground up," Travitz said.

"We had a situation where we started an apprenticeship program with northwestern Pennsylvania, because basically owners in a tri-county area got together and said, 'Why don't we work together to train and educate the people that we need, rather than trying to hire from each other," he said.

The alternative? "I hear stories [from molders saying] we can't fire anybody because we can't replace them. And so I see a lot of bad from my side," Travitz said.

Jeff Ignatowski is the director of sales and marketing at Champion Plastics Inc. in Auburn Hills, Mich., a custom molder that primarily supplies the automotive sector. He agreed that the skills shortage is worse than ever, although he added that Champion has "a pretty stable workforce."

"But if you look at others and what's going on in the industry, I think COVID precipitated a lot of what's happening. But I think it's even gone beyond that. I'm concerned, just work ethic, things like that. It seems like it's changed quite a bit from prior years. So I think that's adding kind of a new twist to the labor shortage issue," Ignatowski said.

Craig Carrel is the co-owner of another automotive molder, Team 1 Plastics Inc. in Albion, Mich. He also feels that the skills shortage is getting worse.

"Before COVID, it wasn't like we had a nirvana of labor and everybody was just knocking on your door," Carrel said. "There are a lot of different factors. One is just that there's fewer younger people. And the older baby boomers are retiring. So you just have a delta caused by demographics," Carrel said.

"Our biggest struggle is at entry level and trying to get somebody to show up. Many times they'll show up for a day, and they don't make it past that. So if they make it past a week or two, they're sort of a long-term employee. So again, it's the work ethic, the being able to just sustain being in a [factory] environment like ours is a real struggle. Finding people just seems to be finding a needle in a haystack at times," Carrel said.

Travitz added: "We can teach people anything we need to teach them," but the key is to find workers willing to learn new skills.

"The thing that I'm always looking for … is that work ethic. People who want to show up and work hard. And I can't teach people to be curious; I can't teach people necessarily to be problem-solvers. If I can find those qualities in somebody, I can teach them the skills and knowledge that they need," Travitz said.

"I need somebody with what I call a good motor. That's what I'm looking for," he said.

Carrel and Ignatowski both said they've had good experiences bringing in workers with a good attitude and willingness to learn, even if they didn't start with a manufacturing or engineering background.

"We were trying to find an electrician, and we interviewed a few people, but we weren't able to secure someone with that training," Carrel said. "So we brought up a young gentleman, took him through all the different trades and training, and he's moved up in the company. And now we have an electrician who is a very loyal team member, and it didn't cost him a dime, he has no debt, and he's making good money."

But what about the risk that a company will invest in training a worker and then lose them to another employer?

"I think if you've brought somebody along and train them and treated them well, it's our responsibility to keep them. And that means, obviously, paying competitive wages. And for those jobs, you are competing against some very large companies with deep pockets. But you know, at the end of the day, it's also how well you treat them. Are you giving them other opportunities to grow? And, you know, it's our job to make it so that they can't get poached," Carrel said.

COVID has created some challenges for manufacturing companies, since most factory workers have to show up in person, Ignatowski said.

"You know, in manufacturing, there's not a lot of remote positions. Maybe purchasing or what have you, but generally, they're all within the manufacturing facility," he said.

"I'm concerned because you got a whole workforce that's just entered for the first time … and many immediately started working from home, and most of them enjoyed it. And I think that's going to have some long-lasting effects on corporate culture and how we do business in the future," Ignatowski said.

Recruiting and onboarding new employees have changed with the pandemic, too.

"We really have put a lot of emphasis on our website. We put a lot of emphasis on it, to make sure that the culture comes through: We promote our people; we're showing different things that we're involved in," Carrel said.

"And now we're on Twitter, we're on Instagram, and we're even looking at, what's the video one, TikTok? Well, we're working on it," Carrel said.

"Because you just have to reach out to where the people are. And young people, that's where they're at. I'm glad I don't have to do it. We have some very qualified people working on it. But again, that's the kind of things that we've been changing. Just to try to find the people."