Eddie Orbison of Clean Seal Inc. in South Bend, Ind., tries out a VRTex welding simulator from VRSim Inc. under the watchful gaze of Lincoln Electric Company’s Jason Scales at the 2019 Work Truck Show in Indianapolis.Photo: Keith Norbury
Looking to strengthen your team’s welding talent?
When the Work Truck Show convenes this March in Indianapolis, three industry insiders are on tap to discuss the need for skilled workers and outline a new welder development and certification program designed specifically for the work truck sector.
Jason Scales, business manager with the educational services department at Lincoln Electric is scheduled to speak alongside Rob Myers, plant manager with Switch-N-Go, and David Ehrlich, director of education with NTEA — The Association for the Work Truck Industry.
Their session, “Building and Validating Work-Ready Welders For Your Shop,” will explore the national effort, led by the NTEA, to bring together the tools needed to train and qualify work-ready welders.
While it’s a challenge hiring skilled welders, the labor shortage is broad, covering multiple skilled trades across the United States.
“You’ve got a high retirement rate going on right now, and with unemployment at 3.5 percent you actually have more open jobs today than physical able-bodied people to take them,” Jason Scales told Service Truck Magazine. “If you lose 20 percent of your workforce due to retirement and just the natural evolution of work, you have to replace 20 percent of your knowledge that’s just walked out the door.”
Industries and their respective trades are also affected by other factors, including the rapid pace of technological change and new knowledge needed on the job. “What’s expected of a new person coming into the industry is much different today than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago,” Scales said.
Reinvigorating the market
Switch-N-Go, a Saegertown, Pa. manufacturer of interchangeable work truck bodies, has — like many companies — experienced the skilled labor shortage first-hand. “It seems like people don’t want to weld anymore,” Rob Myers said in an interview.
In fact, Myers says people in industry have noticed young people entering the trades sometimes failing to pass drug tests, which are meant to promote safe operation of often-dangerous equipment.
“When we get worthy applicants, we require they pass a urine test, and a lot of the guys fail because of marijuana,” Myers said. “If you’re making a career out of something, and you’re going to classes and learning how to weld, I think you’d be more apt to stop smoking marijuana if you knew that was a requirement of your job.”
Asked if prospective workers might prioritize the freedom to consume marijuana and choose to work where they’re not subject to drug tests, Myers conceded that this might reflect a lack of serious interest in a trade such as welding.
One measure industry can take to stir serious interest in the trades is channeling students with hands-on aptitudes towards suitable education and training. To that end, Myers says he’s working with the NTEA to develop offerings such as apprenticeship programs.
“It’s about getting qualified people into the market who can weld,” Myers explained. “We’re trying to reinvigorate a market that is dwindling right now and get more schools involved with teaching welding as a career.”
Learning the trade depth
The effort also involves broadening the skills that are taught so that prospective welders learn the trade in depth and can apply their skills in a range of welding environments.
“We’re trying to create a program that encompasses all the talents that several different echelons of plants would need,” Myers said. “The requirement at my plant would be totally different than, say, the pipeline industry. The pipeline industry would need somebody who knows how to weld and how to pass welding x-ray tests and things like that. But in my application at Switch-N-Go all I really need is someone who can do an aesthetically pleasing and structurally sound weld.”
Jason Scales says welding itself is undergoing profound change in terms of diversification of the practice and its techniques. “You’ve got shipbuilding, offshore rigs, pipelines, automotive, manufacturing and more, and all of those different industry segments use welding in different ways and use different skills to make their products,” Scales said.
So, where young people typically used to enrol in a traditional training program, graduate and then get a job, it’s more complicated nowadays. “It all depends on whether you’re welding on aluminum, carbon steel, thin materials or thick materials, or if you’re using hard automation or welding manually. Companies are looking for specific skills,” Scales said.
Lincoln Electric, a diverse, Cleveland, Ohio-based company that produces welding equipment, recognizes the shift that’s underway and is embracing certification programs. For instance, Scales says, the company is among many collaborating with the National Coalition of Certification Centres (NC3) to work on credentials, standards and programs for trades such as welding.
“What’s exciting for the work truck body industry or anybody else is we can now start to discuss the specific skills and knowledge needed and determine how these certificates or credentials address those skills and knowledge,” Scales said, delineating how one sector might need a welder with two or three particular micro-certification types while another sector might have different needs.
Fostering the talent pipeline
Scales says industry is looking for welders who are safety-minded, technically astute, able to solve problems on the shop floor or in production, and have productivity in mind. To that end, he says educators need to blend knowledge gained in the classroom with knowledge gained through practical application.
“If we’re going to talk in the classroom about shielding gases, there ought to be a lab where we take that knowledge and actually do an experiment to understand the effect that shielding gases actually have on the GMAW (gas metal arc welding),” Scales said.
Ultimately, Scales says, effective teaching and training are key to addressing the skilled labor shortage.
“If I need a talent pipeline, what’s the most effective way to develop that talent?” Scales said. “We’ve got to truly ask ourselves what those skills are that are needed for entry-level welders and other technicians and what do we need them to evolve into over the next few years so that we can grow and maintain the business.”
For more information about the “Building and Validating Work-Ready Welders For Your Show” session at the Work Truck Show, visit www.worktruckshow.com.
For more about the National Coalition of Certification Centres, visit www.nc3.net.
— Saul Chernos
Saul Chernos is a freelance writer based in Toronto.