Deloitte: Close the Skills Gap for US Manufacturing Growth

The US manufacturing industry may need up to 3.8m new employees between 2024 and 2033, according to a new report, from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute (MI): “Taking charge: Manufacturers support growth with active workforce strategies”. 

Despite the opportunity for these millions of jobs, 1.9m could ve vacant if manufacturers are not able to address these skills and applicant gaps. 

Bridging the manufacturing skills gap

Key findings from the new report include:

• There has been a 75% increase in demand for simulation and simulation software skills over the past five years, sought mostly for technology-enabled production or testing roles. 
• The fastest growing roles between 2022-2032 are for statisticians, data scientists, engineers, logisticians, computer and information systems managers, software developers and industrial maintenance technicians. 
• 47% of respondents said that flexible work arrangements (such as shift swapping and split shifts) are most impactful for retaining employees.

John Coykendall, Principal Deloitte Consulting LLP and Vice Chair, US industrial products and construction leader, discussed the results with us.

“We are seeing multiple indications that the US manufacturing industry is poised for continued growth – from the latest jobs numbers to continued investment, we see significant opportunity over the coming decade. Our new analysis projects there could be a need for 3.8m manufacturing jobs within the next decade,” said Coykendall. 

“However, the industry is still facing a significant and impactful gap in both skills and applicants that could lead to over 1.9m jobs going unfilled,” he said. “As the industry continues its digital journey, we see an opportunity for manufacturers to develop their own talent solutions by adopting more employee-focused strategies that will provide the training, tools and technology required to accelerate growth.”

Gen AI and sustainable manufacturing at Deloitte

In its 2024 Manufacturing Outlook report, Tim Gaus, Principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, shared his thoughts on the next year exclusively with Manufacturing Digital. 

“In 2024, we foresee the boom of Gen AI, the scaling of smart manufacturing technologies that were experimented with over the past few years – the metaverse, machine learning, vision analytics and others,” Gaus said. 

As reported in April’s Sustainability Magazine, Deloitte’s clients are indeed building Gen AI into their operational toolkits, which comes with a further challenge - ensuring that human-centricity remains a priority for businesses. 

Jamie Sawchuk, Partner and Global Sustainability Leader for the Alphabet Google alliance at Deloitte Canada told us more. 

“We are leveraging AI combined with robust ethical and privacy guardrails to help automate steps in the ISSB and CSRD compliance processes,” said Sawchuk. “For most clients, the initial focus is on leveraging AI combined with data fully in the public domain.

Read the full article here. 

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