It is nearly impossible to pick up a paper, magazine article, watch a cable news article or review your Tweets these days without reading about the skilled labor shortage affecting the manufacturing industry.
Over the coming months, you’ll see that AMT is doing more than just talking and writing about the skilled labor shortage, the new AMT is actively engaged in doing something about it through our Smartforce development.
For starters, the web site that hosts our online training partnership with ToolingU, along with links to in-person workshops and CMTSE, our sales engineer certification program, will sport a whole new look as MTUniversity, www.mtuniversity.org. MTUniversity allows AMT to deliver outstanding job assessments and online classes for new sales engineers and service technicians from ToolingU, the leading e-Learning provider in our industry.
MTUniversity will also provide us with a platform for working with NCATC, The National Coalition of Advanced Technology Centers, including more than 150 of the nation’s leading community colleges, with Project Lead The Way Schools, as well as with the nation’s top 4-year degreed colleges and universities.
Through our education partnerships, we will funnel the best candidates to our industry through MTCareers to connect students to employers who have open positions they need to fill. Think of this effort to bring young people into the industry as our industry’s “green” effort. We’re planting the seeds now in schools for the future of manufacturing.
We’ve also heard many members tell us that they need to jump start their apprenticeship programs, and we’ve begun to model the types of programs that are still in place, or that have sprung up, and are working well. We’ll deliver a new internship model to any and all member companies that are interested in getting a new program off the ground.
Additionally, for shop floor employees, we’ll work closely with NIMS, the National Institute of Metalworking Skills, to ensure that these young people have the knowledge and credentials to get to work right away.
There is a great deal of work to be done for the future of manufacturing, and all of your thoughts, suggestions and questions are welcome.
Contact Greg Jones, Vice President, Smartforce Development, 703-827-5203 or gjones@AMTonline.org.