Good welders, any welders, are becoming harder to find

by

Ask just about anybody involved in manufacturing about hiring, and they’ll probably all eventually say the same thing: a good welder is hard to find.

Actually, any welder is hard to find.

The years-long shortage of welders is showing no signs of easing up. According to the American Welding Society, the gap between welding jobs and the number of people needed to fill them will hit 200,000 in 2020. By 2026, the shortage is projected to grow to 375,000.

As a result, manufacturers are doubling down on their efforts to expand training options and secure partnerships with training schools — and figuring out how to let would-be welders know that the job is evolving into something very different than it was a few decades ago.

Challenge for industry

“We’ve got to start challenging ourselves and industry about how we are going to attract that next worker,” said Jason Scales, business manager for education at Lincoln Electric Company in

Cleveland, Ohio. “Who is that next worker, what are their needs, their wants, their talents? How are we going to train them and educate them and keep them engaged in manufacturing?”

To find and keep welders — and to run a successful company — in the 21st century requires creativity and a willingness to accept change. Scales said those are both priorities at Lincoln Electric, a place where the tradition of teaching welding is particularly strong.

The company has the world’s longest continuously operating welding school in the world, training more than 250,000 welders since it opened in 1917. During World War II, the facility was the first to train a class of female welders.

For years, Scales said, the training and the jobs that followed remained much the same.

“Thirty years ago, when manufacturers needed a welder, how they welded and what they welded was very similar,” he said.

But in recent decades, the demands of industry and the explosion of technology have transformed the job.

New materials, new techniques

Truck body manufacturers are building with lightweight materials that require new techniques. Gas metal arc welding, or GMAW, involves hundreds of mode weld sets that require as much work on a computer as on the material itself. A welder’s well-honed skills for one manufacturer or industry may not match up with what another company needs.

That heightened level of specificity has expanded possibilities for welders and welding. But Scales said it’s also exacerbated the shortage of welders trained for the positions industries need. Unless welding training programs and companies are equipping welders with up-to-date, industry specific skills, there won’t be enough of the right workers to fill all the empty jobs.

“People say students don’t have the right skills, or you might hear, ‘The local trade schools are not producing somebody I can hire,’” he said. “Welding is becoming specialized in nature with the techniques and processes certain industries are using.”

For some manufacturers, the solution to that problem may be building or expanding an in-house welding program. Matt Schroeder, engineering manager for Stellar Industries Inc., said his company has been using that approach for several years.

“We found we needed to put a weld program in to really take weld from more of an art to a science, make things repeatable within our own organization, and figure out how to teach this so we can build our own people into expert welders,” Schroeder said.

Work Truck Show session

Schroeder and Scales are scheduled to speak about that idea and more in a presentation on welding at the Work Truck Show in Indianapolis this March.

A service truck body manufacturer based in Garner, Iowa, Stellar has built welders out of people who previously had no experience — but who had the right kind of skills and interests. Schroeder said people who can pay attention to detail and learn to read and understand an engineering print often can become strong welders.

“It’s (about) helping them define or understand what the goal is,” Schroeder said. “It’s not

ambiguous, it’s very controllable; it’s so controllable that we can teach a robot how to do it.”

Companies seeking to boost their own training programs can look to local schools and colleges, as well as industry associations like the American Welding Society, Schroeder said. But more important than the outside support is the buy-in of the organization itself. He said Stellar has focused on the opportunities that come with better welding training, rather than the expense — and has found plenty of reasons to be pleased with the tradeoff.

Training efficiencies

In-house training has given Stellar more control over the products it builds and a constant opportunity to fine-tune its operations on multiple levels.

“The better quality of our parts meant that our equipment went together better, we spent less time re-working or re-welding components that without this would have caused assembly challenges,” Schroeder said.

That’s made for efficiencies across the company, from savings on paint to fewer warranty issues. Schroeder said customers see the difference.

“I think they appreciate the fit and finish of the part, the dependability of the product,” he said.

Even with the in-house training program, Schroeder said the search for welders is constant. With so many jobs to fill, companies and training programs are also evolving to attract young workers who might initially dismiss the idea of a career in welding.

Scales said Lincoln Electric partners with a variety of youth organizations, including the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and the FFA (formerly Future Farmers of America), to show young people the opportunities that exist in manufacturing — including in welding. Girl Scouts on a trip to visit the company got an up-close look at robotics and a chance to get their laser-cut picture frames, made as they watched.

“I think those are the ways we’re really going to start getting the next generation excited,” Scales said. “They’ve got to understand it’s not a dirty, dingy, old, crusty job.”

Welding turns high-tech

And unlike in the past, welding jobs can easily be a good fit for someone with an aptitude for computers. Scales recalled manning his company’s booth at a student career fair and beckoning over a passing student to talk about welding.

The young man shook his head, telling Scales he was a computer programmer, not a welder.

“I said, ‘Well, you know, buddy, we need you too,’” Scales replied.

“We have the largest printed circuit board manufacturing center in Ohio, we have web-based programs,” he said. “It’s high technology and I need computer programmers who can help us adapt and develop.”

Scales said he’d like to see more welding teachers spending time visiting companies in the industry to see how the work is evolving – and vice versa. He said it’s clear everyone working to train and employ welders need to work together to make a dent in the shortage.

For companies like his to thrive, he said, ignoring the problem isn’t an option.

“If we don’t have good welders, we don’t have Lincoln Electric.”

Jason Scales, of Lincoln Electric, and Matt Schroeder, of Stellar Industries Inc., will present “Welding — More than a Piece of Equipment and a Welder” during the inaugural Manufacturer and Distributor Innovation Conference at the 2019 Work Truck Show in Indianapolis. Their session takes place Tuesday, March 5 from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m.

— Erin Golden

Erin Golden is a writer based in Minnesota.