Advanced Manufacturing Employment in Michigan Reaches New Heights

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Advanced manufacturing employment in Michigan has reached more than 700,000 workers, according to a new report from Detroit-based Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow (LIFT). The employment level is the highest in the industry since 2006.

The quarterly reports, highlighting employment trends, top jobs, and required skills in advanced manufacturing, are completed with research and analysis from the Workforce Intelligence Network of Southeast Michigan (WIN), and Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, which are part of a region that’s home to more than 50 percent of the metalworking jobs in the country.

Despite employer demand for lightweighting-related skills showing a slight decline from the fourth quarter, there were close to 26,000 online jobs posted in the first quarter of 2018, up 30 percent from five years ago.

“Advanced manufacturing job demand has created an ever-growing need for talent in Michigan and across the country,” says Emily DeRocco, education and workforce director of LIFT. “Addressing those workforce needs with advanced manufacturing education pathways will be key to our nation’s economic prosperity and national security.”

The top in-demand lightweighting-related jobs in Michigan in the first quarter of 2018 include laborers and freight, stock and material movers, with 2,317 postings; maintenance and repair workers, with 1,967 postings; electrical engineers, with 1,500 postings; mechanical engineers, with 1,425 postings; and production workers, with 1,422 postings.

LIFT, operated by the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute and one of the founding Manufacturing USA institutes, is a public-private partnership dedicated to developing and deploying advanced lightweight metal manufacturing technologies, as well as implementing education and training programs to better prepare the workforce today and in the future.

The full Michigan report can be viewed here.