‘What It Took to Get Us to Stay’: Entry Level Manufacturing Workers Speak Up
Adrienne Selko | Nov 2, 2022 | Industry Week
The best resource for finding out why employees stay at their jobs is to ask them. IW spoke with three entry-level workers in different industries. Here are their responses as to what they like about their jobs and why they have stayed. The learning process is very much a personal choice here, Chris says. Stephen: “It’s important for a company to invest in their people. It makes you want to stick around when you know that the company is investing in you” The pay is good and there are ways for me to increase it if I want more.
Manufacturing Growth Slows to Two-Year Low
Ryan Secard | Nov 1, 2022 | Industry Week
Manufacturing growth in the U.S. remained mostly flat in October, according to the latest monthly report on the sector from the Institute for Supply Management. Survey respondents saw customer demand slow amid concerns over a possible recession. The manufacturing economy has grown every month since May 2020, but the growth seen in October was the slowest it has been since then. “ New orders continued to contract in October but at a slower rate than before, improving by 2.1 points to land at 49.2%, less than a full percentage point away.
Conquering the Skills Gap
Ilene Wolff | Nov 1, 2022 | SME Media
David Thompson is one of almost 198,000 new apprentices among a total of nearly 448,000 trainees in more than 19,000 programs. At the end of June, there were 790,000 job openings in the U.S. manufacturing sector. The number of apprenticeships is mission critical to help fill the skills gap, says Cox Manufacturing CEO Bill Cox. Cox apprenticeship programs are just one of many efforts to overcome a chronic shortage of workers to fill the country’s manufacturing plants.
Manufacturing Slips in October, Nearing Contraction Level
Bill Koenig | Nov 1, 2022 | SME Media
Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index, known as the PMI, reached 50.2 percent last month. That was down from 50.9 percent in September. October index reading was also the lowest since manufacturing began to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Officials cautioned that a PMI below 50 percent doesn’t necessarily mean a full-fledged recession for the economy. The index has remained in positive territory for 29 consecutive months for the past year.
Fed Again Raises Interest Rates
Christopher Rugaber | Nov 3, 2022 | IMPO
Powell: Inflation pressures, he says, remain far too high. Powell: “We think we have a ways to go, we have some ground to cover with interest rates” The central bank announced Wednesday that it was pumping up its benchmark rate by a substantial three-quarters of a point for a fourth straight time. Its key rate now stands in a range of 3.75% to 4%, the highest in 15 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down over 500 points, or about 1.5%.
The Industrial Metaverse – The Next Big Thing For Manufacturing?
Metrology.News Publication | Nov 2, 2022 | Metrology.News
The Metaverse is based on real-time 3D content. Virtual and Augmented Reality allow people to experience this content much like real life. VR and AR offer unique potential for new forms of entertainment, digital communication, location-independent encounters and collaboration. Like the Internet, the Industrial Metaverse will initially start in individual companies, then in the next phase it will bring together partner companies, and in the future, it will span entire industries. It will provide the industrial infrastructure for next phase of digital transformation.