One of the local proponents of growing new high tech companies in the region is the President of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, Joe Roman, but even he says it's time to make manufacturing jobs "sexy" again.
Joe Roman: Whatever you've heard about the excitement of new industries in town is extremely important, but there is no more important industry in this economy than manufacturing.
There are 11,000 manufacturing companies in Northeast Ohio that employ 330,000 people. The Cleveland-based Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, known as Magnet, has been promoting those companies. But in a survey in the fall they found people aged 18 to 34 have a low opinion of manufacturing jobs. 90% believe they are low-paying, short term jobs. The Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers, Phyllis Eisen, says in fact the average salary, $63,000, is higher than the rest of the economy.
Phyllis Eisen: Our future workforce is not going to just be about people who had seat time in school and everybody went to college and everybody got a graduate degree. It's going to be about people who know how to do things.
A survey by NAM found 80% of manufacturing companies can't fill their job openings. Denise Reading, president of Tri-C's Corporate College, says news of big company layoffs has scared away young people, much like what happened in other industries.
Denise Reading: The minute the tech crisis happened and the bubble burst people told their children, school counselors told children, neighbors and cousins told them 'don't go into technology.' In the area of manufacturing, there is so much bad news that we don't talk about all the great opportunity we have in manufacturing.
Opportunities like tons of job openings says the CEO of Swagelok, the Solon-based maker of fluid valves and regulators. Art Anton expects 5,500 to 6,000 job openings a year from Northeast Ohio companies. He says manufacturing is the new economy.
Art Anton: People that think manufacturing facilities are dark and dungy places are just wrong. Manufacturing invest significantly in capital to make stuff with Computer Aided Design and advanced robotics.
That's what the NAM and Magnet hope to explain to young people in Northeast Ohio and communities in five other states with a year-long promotion called Dream It Do It. Eisen says they tried it first last year in Kansas City and enrollment in manufacturing related college courses jumped 35%. Some local students already are on board. Anthony Schiraldi has finished a precision manufacturing program at Tri-C and is about to study CNC, or computer numeric controls. He says it's a blast.
Anthony Schiraldi: I went down to Tri-C just to scope it out and everybody there knew exactly what they were talking about and pointed out a program to me. I went to visit some manufacturers and it seemed like a very vibrant thing.
You're not worried about job prospects?
Anthony Schiraldi: Not in the slightest.
Do friends of yours think 'what are doing working in CNC - what kind of business is that?'
Anthony Schiraldi: Yeah, I have to explain a lot. I had to explain it to my parents too.
His father is a professor at Case Western Reserve. At Cleveland State, Brandy Hammond started with computer programming but switched to electrical engineering. She interned locally at GE and NASA and already has people knocking on her door.
Brandy Hammond: Actually yes, and it's kind of shocking because this is my second internship and I still have a year of college to go. So I have a lot of decision-making to do.
What do you want to get into?
Brandy Hammond: I definitely want to do something in the satellite communication engineering field. Anything that can help facilitate that I want to be part of.
At the end of the day you can say 'I built something.'
Brandy Hammond: Exactly, I can point up to the sky and say 'that's mine.'
Local proponents say the new manufacturing requires some new skills but they expect older workers, who may have been laid off from old line companies, can retrain and find good work. Phyllis Eisen says young people in particular are looking for ways to change the world - and the manufacturing plant can do that.
Phyllis Eisen: It always astounds me that something raw, goes in, raw materials goes in to one end of these buildings and something comes out at the other end. Not just talk, not just paper, but something.
Ohio ranks third in the nation in manufacturing output, behind only California and Texas.