Face the Facts: Push for more manufacturing jobs in Connecticut

Manufacturing is a major part of Connecticut's workforce and has been for more than 100 years. And now, there's a new push to get more companies to Make It Here, as the slogan goes.

So what kind of companies are coming in, and how do we fill all these jobs, knowing we already have about 90,000 jobs that need to be filled right now?

Mike Hydeck: Joining now is Paul Lavoie, Chief Manufacturing Officer for the State of Connecticut. Mr. Lavoie, good to see you. Thanks for coming in, we appreciate it. So the big question, it's been a struggle. What kind of companies are we trying to attract, and how do we fill these jobs? We still need welders. We still need nurses. We still need teachers.

Paul Lavoie: Well, our focus right now is taking care of the companies that we have here, right? We have 4,800 manufacturers in the state of Connecticut. It's the second largest industry in the state, next to finance and insurance, and it's growing, growing significantly. We've grown by $2 billion over the last two years. We've created 3,800 jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Mike Hydeck: When it's grown by $2 million, what does that mean? Two billion. Does that mean new accounts?

Paul Lavoie: That's growth from existing manufacturers that are here in the state.

Mike Hydeck: So like more submarine contracts.

Paul Lavoie: More submarine contracts. More helicopters. So we make the nuclear submarines for the Navy. We make the F135 engine for the F35 fighter. We make the Black Hawk helicopter and the CH-53 heavy lift helicopter. And the entire supply chain that supports all of that, as well as medical device manufacturing, food manufacturing, chemical manufacturing. We have a really robust and wide variety of manufacturers here in Connecticut.

Mike Hydeck: So getting the pipeline to get people to fill all these jobs, we know we have certain pipelines. Should we expand it? Do we change the way we address higher education in Connecticut? We got to get people in the jobs.

Paul Lavoie: Yeah, absolutely. So the number one challenge is lack of an available and skilled workforce, and so we're tackling it two ways. The Connecticut Manufacturing Strategic Plan has three components, developing talent, building sustainable and resilient companies and driving innovation. It's developing talent and driving innovation together that's going to help us get to full employment in the manufacturing sector, because there will never be enough people to fill the jobs. We see it across every sector, but in the manufacturing…

Mike Hydeck: Baby boomers are retiring across all sectors.

Paul Lavoie: Absolutely right. Population numbers are down, and you know we're forecasted to have over two million open manufacturing jobs in the country in 2030 and we have a plan in Connecticut to get to full employment in the manufacturing sector by 2030. We're doing that a couple of different ways. We're doing that by connecting academia and industry together. So this morning, we came from a convening at Central Connecticut State University, where we're bringing industry to the table to make sure that academia is creating the workforce that we need today and the workforce in the future. So that's really key.

Mike Hydeck: So that's on the college level?

Paul Lavoie: Well, at the college level, but also at the community college level, and also at the high school level as well. And the technical high schools. We're taking a look at high school programs and how we can get kids introduced into manufacturing programs so that they can go into the workforce and then they can go back to school later and get their degree later, and things like that.

Mike Hydeck: So the way kids are talked to in school should be a part of this, in my opinion, because when I was growing up in public school here in Connecticut, I was channeled towards college. I wasn't channeled toward any of the trades and then saying, 'Okay, you can get a graduate degree and continue to manage this huge corporation, if you want to.' Should the conversation change?

Paul Lavoie: We are changing that conversation. So we're starting to see from the high schools, we're starting to see the percentage of kids going on to the military, two year and four year dropping, which means more kids are going into the workforce. So we've created what we call a look book, which is a book that's going to sit in the guidance offices that talks about manufacturing careers, and it talks about how you can go right from high school or two years at university or a four-year university here in Connecticut and get an amazing career in manufacturing. You know, a manufacturing job when you've been in the job for about five to seven years pays pretty close to $100,000 a year. So these are really good jobs for young people to be able to build a very, very nice career in Connecticut. So we're doing a lot of work at the high school level to talk to kids, but we also have to reach parents, right? Our big frontier is the kitchen table, where those decisions are being made, to be able to show parents what a manufacturing career looks like, and to see the kind of future that holds for their kids is really key and important. So we have this robust program that is really taking a look at, basically from kindergarteners all the way up through our college system, of how do we get people introduced to manufacturing and manufacturing careers.

Mike Hydeck: When you want to eventually bring in new businesses, do things like the market forces kind of make it difficult for your pitch, because, remember, we were all getting ready to jump in with both feet for electric vehicles. We have a couple of charging station companies that were building those chargers here, one in Enfield, another one in Southbury. But then all sudden, electric vehicles go away. So how does that work when you're trying to get new companies to come in?

Paul Lavoie: Yeah, I mean, having a sustainable supply chain is important for that. But what makes Connecticut attractive to companies, especially in the manufacturing sector, are a couple of things. Number one, we have one of the one of the most advanced workforces in the United States, right? We have, from a college educated standpoint, but from from a just the overall knowledge of how to get things done, you can't replicate the Connecticut workforce anywhere else in the country.

Mike Hydeck: If you're building submarines and helicopter wheels for the military, you pretty much know logistics.

Paul Lavoie: We build the most sophisticated things known to humans. The other is the efficiency and productivity of our workforce and the rate at which we get things done as well. So it really is that talented workforce that will attract companies to come here. But it's for high level things. We're a high value, low volume state. We make three submarines a year. And so it's not, you know, it's not like we're making millions of homes.

Mike Hydeck: We hope to make three submarines.

Paul Lavoie: We're trying to get to three, right? I'm optimistic. We're trying to get to three submarines. But in building the workforce to do that, but so we're not a company that's attractive to somebody that's looking for a low wage workforce, right? Companies that are looking to come here are companies that are highly technical. For example, we have a company that is looking to do additive manufacturing on a large scale in the aerospace industry. And they'll come to Connecticut. We have a construction company that does house frames using robots. They'll come to Connecticut. They'll have a 300,000 square foot facility run by 70 people. That's the Connecticut, that's why companies would come to Connecticut, is to really tap into that advanced workforce that we have in the manufacturing sector and, quite frankly, the ecosystem, our colleges, our technology centers, all of the people that are supporting manufacturing, best in class, best in the country.