and the industry-driven need for different, more knowledgeable welders, whether they are working in a fab shop, a manufacturing plant, or in the field on a construction site or oil rig. And each of these areas needs a welding specialist with different skill sets. The job markets are changing and advancing, but the education environment, until recently, has not kept pace with industry. Both welding schools and employers are in a crux. Schools — career technical education centers, community colleges, and four-year institutions — ponder how much they need to specialize to address regional talent shortages, while employers need productive, dedicated employees in their facilities to produce a product. When we talk about employability in the field of welding, and we read there will be a need for 378,000 welders by 2022, what does that truly mean? Are these welders who are only pulling triggers and burning rods? Or, does this number include engineers, technologists, robotic welding operators, mechanized orbital system operators, laser welding cell technicians, quality control engineers, and other more specialized roles required in present-day and future welding operations? We need to ask ourselves who is going to fill the open jobs for inspectors down the road. Who is going to be capable of running automated cells, which demand that welders work in a very different way than when they weld manually? Having the right employees on your shop floor or in the field depends on education, not just skills training. Consider this recent real-life example: An employer hires a new worker straight out of an associate’s degree program. The company also has an automated welding cell that they think is broken. The new hire examines it, reconfigures and repairs it, and has it up and running, using the skills he learned in his degree program. He came out of school with the ability to assess, evaluate, and fix a sophisticated piece of welding equipment as a “green” welder. Educating Employees Today and Tomorrow There are a lot of issues at play when you consider the definite link between education and employment. We keep telling everyone we need more welders. That’s not exactly the right answer. We need to ask who and what we need, and what kind of training do they have to have to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. Not every new hire of the future will need to have a four-year welding engineering degree. We’ll still need welders who can perform manual welding processes, and we’ll also need operators who have training at a twoyear institution and an associate’s degree. But one thing is certain, the level of education required for emerging technology must be advanced, not only for new welders coming out of school but also for those with potential on your shop floor. I recently heard about a manufacturing company that assessed every employee on his or her skills, including the company president. It turned out that everyone needed a training/ education refresh, including the president. The company ultimately spent more than $25,000 on workforce development. Workforce development for manufacturers is a hot topic not only in the public sector but in government as well. Legislators at the state and federal level all want U.S. manufacturing to be competitive on a global basis. In 2009, the American Recovery and 36 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2015 Welding, like agriculture, has matured into a series of specialized fields requiring specialized education for success in global markets. Employers are demanding a different education level and set of skills for welding jobs that require programming, operation, and troubleshooting of robotic welding cells and other automated systems.
Welding Journal | September 2015
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